I was reading about illegal fish in the New York Times. And it struck me how the world is about to go into starvation mode, or at least deprivation.

Forget fish or greens ($16 a pound for the best ones at Union Square), but $20-$40 for a f**ng fish and chips made or sting ray? And with the rising price of wine, $16 a bottle for every day fare with the current price increase?

And then in the middle of all of this deprivation I read Eric Asimov's regalation about the Barolos he drank at Doug Polaner's house and I threw myself over, waddled and wallowed into the muddy, gritty grave of jealousy.

It wasn't pretty.

The fish coupled with the account of the wines Mr. A got to not taste but drink, drink, drink......he got to drink the wines that modernity tried to squelch, take to the gallows, poison, turn into Stepford wives (and did all of the above)....he got to drink the ones I long for and crave, well, reading about it made me fall off the horse of good positivity.

I am not proud of my reaction. It is terribly petty. Because there is no more worthy writer to get to taste those jewels and celebrate them. But with the price of gold so high,reality smacked me in the puss and made me feel deep in my bones that we (our nation) might well be on the verge of a beans, rice and bathtub gin diet, at least after the Loire Gamay runs out. ( I am not a sturdy girl. I won't survive. I need Barolo and greens).

But, back to the tasting. One wine he had that dug in between the T5 & T6 was the wine he said he drank of Bartolo's father that was labeled Giulio Mascarello.

I've experienced jealousy before, romantic jealousy. It sucks. Okay, that was worse but this is pretty bad. I know, it's indulgent, it's being spoiled brat, it's not like I haven't had old wine, and I don't begrudge him, in fact I am glad he could go and tell me (us) about it, but not experiencing them makes me sad. But, under the new regime of the positive me, shouldn't it make me giddy and delighted that someone who deserves them drank them?

Well, yes, I am but that's the rational. The irrational is jealous. Yet wine jealousy has no place in my new (Super Ego) guard. And if I am fair to myself, it's not even that kind of jealousy, it's kind of nose pressed to the glass kind of stuff. But that's another story.

One thing will make this rant all worthwhile and allow me to turn it into a quest instead of a tantrum is knowledge!
And for this I turn to you.

Now,that label. Mascarello wines before Bartolo had his way with them (can't remember the year but in 70's?) always were labled Cantina Mascarello, no? From whence the Guilio? And in 1971? Bartolo was certainly making the wine for the Cantina then, so what is the story on this wine? Was Guilio even alive? What if they brought him back for one last vinification gasp? How cool would that be?

This might be a job for the master of this sort of thing, Jeremy Parzen.

Let's wait. Maybe he'll show up with the answer.