If any of you Napa locals know about Lawler’s Liquor Store, give a shout. It has a staggeringly poor wine selection, a great liquor selection, and a nifty twist to the LQ business plan. Locals know – and I found out on December 30th, a day late – that Peter and his brother have institutionalized Italian takeout in the most Regularian way. Props to these guys. It’s a Napa tradition to bring some Tupperware, a saucepan, a crockpot, or whatever you please – in to be filled with some yummies for New Year’s Eve. The yummies in question are terrific red sauces, lasagnas and pastas. A unique bit of food they’ve been offering for several years is a century-old mistake called “malfatti” which is no mistake at all. Apparently, as the tale goes in Peter’s words, some guys in the Bay Area were in the business of making their own ravioli from scratch. If you’ve ever tried it, you’ll know where I’m going. The pasta didn’t cooperate on this fine day, which wasn’t the luckiest one of the month. The delectable little pillows didn’t seal properly and the pesto-based stuffing ran amok in pots of boiling water. Someone in the group ate one when the water was drained and decided to toss the idea of the pasta envelope process for the next batch – just roll up some of the stuffing between two palms, toss it into the water and enjoy. The little wads were named malfatti (the first syllable being a prefix denoting “bad” or “poor” in most Romantic languages; “fatti” has parallels with our English verb “to form”). Malformed. Malfeasance. Malfunction. Malpractice. You see what that prefix means in other circumstances and how it can change an innocent Saturday in a kitchen or on an operating table. The malfatti caught on, and Lawler’s serves them piping hot on demand. They’re quite good, reminiscent of gnocchi. I liked the general flavor profile, but as Peter warned me, the texture might be an acquired preference. He was right. I told him so, with the additional catch that I was anti-Scotch as well for the longest time until something clicked one night.
I wish for you the Lawler’s malfatti experience. I think they’d be a good foil for a young Barbaresco or cabernet franc. If you live in Massachusetts, perhaps one day I’ll be able to air-mail you a half dozen malfatti and a 6-pack of Gaja. No, you say? Ahoy, yes, I respond. It’s true. The federal courts have once again ruled in favor of the grape. I won’t go into all of the details as though the matter is news, but just understand that for the longest time (it feels eternal when you want to get wines on tables all over the US and can’t), states have been engaged in a battle royale on behalf of wine enthusiasts. It’s a big economic fight, in the end, but the first step in keeping wine consumers happy and able to order their favorite wines from other states is to have the shipping legalities taken care of. The federal government is the overseer in ensuring our Constitutional rights. It is then up to each state to pass legislation in its own way to simply get with it and figure out how to make the state budget numbers work while maintaining a happy, wine-loving populace. The morality card is the one in effect since Prohibition, but if we face up to the truth, we realize that it’s about the shekels.
So let’s celebrate the fact that the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals determined yesterday that a 2006 law that created a challenging multi-tiered system in Massachusetts violates the state’s Commerce Clause in today’s world. Prior to yesterday, the law affected large (30,000 case) wineries’ ability to operate smoothly in a competitive environment. It’s not a done deal. Again, the Massachusetts legislature has more work to do, but this is a lobbying opportunity for wineries to obtain the right to ship to Bay State consumers’ office or homes in a totally compliant manner.
It’s a complicated issue – retail/wholesale, small wineries/large wineries, two-tier/three-tier…..but just know that there are people working day and night to improve how much great wine you can mail-order, no matter where you live. If it means a lot to you, your freedom I mean, check out www.freethegrapes.org from time to time. It’s a fascinating repository of matters related to wine shipping, and just another way to get a barometer reading on this great country in which we live. (foreign readers, pardon me, but I don’t feel syndicated at this juncture)
