Blog guest: Robert Camuto

I was in Sicily on vacation when Robert Camuto (photo on the left) – award-winning journalist and travel writer – tried to contact me about his new book Palmento: A Sicilian Wine Odyssey (Amazon.com link). I am a Blackberry addict, but I let my emails pile up for a few days while on vacation and I missed his book tour in New York City the second week of September.

Since Robert Camuto and his family moved to France nearly a decade ago, he has contributed travel, wine and epicurean articles to publications including the Washington Post and the Wine Spectator. His critically-acclaimed first book, Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country (Amazon.com link) was published in 2008 . His second book, Palmento: A Sicilian Wine Odyssey (Amazon.com link) – a testament to winegrowing , food and life in his grandfather’s homeland– has just appeared.

Determined to make up for this missed opportunity, I contacted Camuto last week. He was very gracious and agreed to answer a few questions about his new book for SicilyGuide readers.

Video (14:41 min.) Palmento presentation & reading at McNally Jackson in SoHo (NY)

You say that you cannot be objective about Sicily, is it just because your family has Sicilian origins or you feel something else?

Camuto: No, it is not just because of my Sicilian roots, and I discuss this in Palmento. To me there is a magic in Sicily that permeates the air and the countrysides and defies our sense of neat, objective truth. Incredible things happen when you open yourself to happenstance there. These qualities have been felt for centuries by many who have no Sicilian or even Italian roots.

You describe your travel to Sicily as a transforming moment, why is it so? France was not so transforming?

Camuto: Moving to France in 2001 was indeed a transforming moment in my life. Particularly because it was Mediterranean France. There is something about olive trees and the way they reflect sunlight– it’s something I cannot live without. But in much of the south of France– as well as Italy– traditions are being buried by modern life and supermarkets and convenience. In Sicily, change has been slow, and I find that people still live life as it should be lived: with a pace and an appreciation that comes from the heart. Talk about Eat, Pray, Love: to me in Sicily they all happen at once– like the time I ate just-made ricotta in the middle of a snowstorm on Mt. Etna. I will never forget the moment because there was something nourishing at levels: physical, emotional and spiritual.

I do agree with you that the world has become more and more of the same thing, but Sicily keeps some uniqueness. In spite of the insularity of the island, I think that this is changing fast for Sicily too. Do you want to add anything to this?

Camuto: Yes Sicily is changing, and that is inevitable. But as I discuss in Palmento, hopefully Sicily will learn the lessons of other places — such as parts of Tuscany– that in my opinion have lost too much of their character with their success and trying to please outsiders. What I find in Sicily is that despite the changes, its soul and values– among them family, la cucina, and a mistrust of rules from outside– remain solidly intact.

Why did you leave the title of the book Palmento?

Camuto: Palmento is a word that is so evocative to me…The palmenti are the old traditional stone wineries you see across much of the island–many of them wine huts right in the vineyards that are now abandoned. Palmento conjures history, wine, a way of life that I hope will not be lost. In fact later this month I will be returning to Mount Etna to help with the harvest and winemaking in an old palmento that the winemaker Ciro Biondi is putting back into use as a sort of private experiment among friends.

Did you get to taste this vino cosmico?
Camuto: One of the last passages of the book features a local man on Etna who makes what he once referred to as vino cosmico. Yes I tasted Pietro’s wine and like the good home wines in Sicily— it didn’t have all the big scents and flavors we have come to expect in commercial wines. But it did have a happy and lively soul conducive to what is to me the essence of wine– sharing with others in a sort of communion with the world of living things. You could certainly call that vino cosmico!

Robert is going to Sicily for the harvest on Mount Etna in an old resurrected palmento in two weeks and continuing his book tour on the west coast of the US in late October. Look for his book at your local bookstore or buy it at Amazon.com.

Description of the book

Here, amid the wild landscapes, lavish markets, dramatic religious rituals, deliciously contrasting flavors, and astonishing natural warmth of its people, Camuto portrays Sicily at a shining moment in history. He takes readers into the anti-Mafia movement growing in the former mob vineyards around infamous Corleone; tells the stories of some of the island’s most prominent landowning families; and introduces us to film and music celebrities and other foreigners drawn to Sicily’s vineyards. His book takes wine as a powerful metaphor for the independent identity of this mythic land, which has thrown off its legacies of violence, corruption, and poverty to emerge, finally free, with its great soul intact.

More about Robert Camuto

Robert Camuto is a prize-winning journalist and author living in the south of France. Since he moved to France nearly a decade ago, he has contributed travel, wine and epicurean articles to publications including the Washington Post and the Wine Spectator.

A New York native and graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism (1984), Robert has over the years contributed to publications including the New York Times, New York Daily News, the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, D (Dallas) Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald and many more.

Robert worked for years as a newspaper reporter and editor in Texas, before founding the irreverent, award-winning alternative newsweekly Fort Worth Weekly in 1996. After selling the newspaper in 2000, Robert realized a long-time dream of moving to France with his French-born wife and their Texas-born son.

The Camuto family renovated a centuries-old olive oil mill as their home. When not traveling, he cultivates olives and vines on his property; he and a fellow wine lover began making red wine on the property in 2006.