Alan Tardi, Romancing the Vine: Life, Love, and Transformation

Romancing the Vine: Life, Love, and Transformation in the Vineyards of Barolo

Alan Tardi

St. Martin's, Nov 2006, $25.95

ISBN: 031235794X

Not long after the horrifying 9/11, restaurateur Alan Tardi closed his popular Follonico to leave the Big Apple for some soul searching. He went Italy's renowned wine region, the Piedmont, where he settled in the village of Castiglione Falletto. Mr. Tardi explains that 9/11 was a wake up call to what matters in life, love of others and to be loved. Thus he followed his heart to be with his Ivana at her family vineyards working the field along with her brother to bring it back to life. Though he returns to Manhattan periodically, he has adjusted to his new outdoor lifestyle.

Part travelogue, part Italian cookbook, part romance, and part cleansing the soul, Mr. Tardi provides a deep look at the Piedmont wine region while at the same time enabling readers a chance to understand why he needed to renew his life. The recipes are mouthwatering and the description of the vineyards are top rate, but the biography is at its best when the author opens his soul to his audience; the cooking and vineyards are healers at least for him while his love of people is what the terrorists cannot destroy.

Harriet Klausner