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星期天登山，抱了一大片嫩綠回家。

這個秋冬太冷、太長了。六妹去後的幾個月，我幾乎每天聽馬勒的「大地之歌」。但「大地之歌」任你聽多少次，也及不上登一次太平山。

上山路上，但見點點青綠，連最平凡的 ferns ，也拔地而起，使勁地扭著身軀，唱著﹕春回大地了！

回家後，我準備與家人晚飯時喝的酒。上星期剛到了一瓶 Emidio Pepe 的 2002 Montepulciano d'Abruzzo ，我心想﹕媽媽應該最愛這種鮮甜不造作的葡萄汁。

怎料一開瓶，令我大吃一驚！非常野性、泥土、原始的氣味，入口是比較熟、很沉實的果味，完全不像典型 Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 那種 fruit bomb 的風格，既不甜也不酸，他更讓我想起在鄉下地方一盤不知名的野菜濃湯。

這瓶酒在家裏試還好，習慣了他的土味以後，還覺得他蠻有性格的。我馬上找來 Stravinsky 的 CD  “Rite of Spring 春之祭”，在冰封的北國，春天的來臨引發原始部族的狂歌勁舞，仿似一場暴動。我在喝的已經不是酒，而是從冰封大地下的火山奔涌而出的岩漿。

我以前聽過 Emidio Pepe 的名字，好像是個 cult producer ，但他的酒我還是第一次踫到。

翻查資料，原來 Emidio Pepe 是個奇人，他信奉的是大自然。他的酒不在木桶陳年，不經過 malolactic fermentation ，不用 filtering ，經過兩年在玻璃壁的水泥缸內陳年後，酒先入瓶存放，在上市前再用人手 double decant 到新的瓶子裏。詳情請看他們的網站﹕http://www.emidiopepe.com/

用他們自己的話說﹕

Picked by hand,

pressed by young ladies' feet,

the grapes become must,

and the must wine,

and it seems that naturedoes it all.

 

Bastianich and Lynch 的 Vino Italiano 是這樣介紹 Emidio Pepe 的﹕ 

When these wines are on, they are like good older Burgundies, though there is considerable bottle-to-bottle variation.  The Pepe family remains committed to organic farming, hand-picking and foot-crushing grapes, minimal-intervention vinification, and long bottle aging.  They regularly decant and rebottle wines, the effect being a sort of controlled oxidation, but in tasting the wines you’ll often find the oxidative balsamic notes overpowering the rosy, spicy fruit.  Then again, maybe those just seem like flaws because no other wines taste quite like these.  There's a big cult following who appear to “get” the Pepe style, so maybe it is a question of more practice.

Sheldon Wasserman 說 Emidio Pepe 是他見過的最奇特的 wine producer ﹕

Pepe has some rather atypical ideas about wine and winemaking.  He doesn't like the taste of wine aged in wood, and he doesn't drink it.  In fact, until a few years ago, he wouldn't drink any producer’s wine but his own …  He doesn't believe in using machines of any kind, if at all possible …

但 Wasserman 還是高度稱贊他的酒，並說只有 Edoardo Valentini 的   Montepulciano d'Abruzzo  造得比他好。

Antonio Galloni 說﹕

In a time of increasing convergence these wines stand out for their unique style, artisan approach and notable purity. Though the extremely traditional approach may not be for everyone, readers looking for wines that offer much complexity and evolution in the glass owe it to themselves to check out the wines of Emidio Pepe.

我看我們把 Emidio Pepe 當作藝術家來看更恰當。

講得最精彩的大概是 Tom Ciocco ，他認為 Emidio Pepe 可比作繁星夜空中的北斗。他寫道﹕

An artistic analogy comes to mind here. At certain point in the development of western art, the concept that all art must be “beautiful” to be judged as “good” begins to crumble, or at very least what is deemed to actually be beautiful begins to broaden. And so it is with Pepe. These wines are not first and foremost “things of beauty” but rather brutally honest reflections of their environment – a sort of cinema verite`with fruit. If you're after “perfected” wines, these bottlings are not for you. But if the concept that one can literally drink a sculpture of that particular ridge in Torano Nuovo, Abruzzo during the scorching summer of 2003 appeals to you, there is no one who can convey this with greater verve than Emidio Pepe.

（見﹕http://winelibrary.com/Emidio_Pepe_-_A_Peculiar_Lodestar_in_a_C.asp）

但我更願意相信他是老聃的傳人，因為他們的信條都是一樣的﹕

人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然。

天下皆知美之為美，斯惡已。

Emidio Pepe

看瓶塞多古拙！