I'll start with a quote from the book Bread, Wine, Chocolate - The slow loss of foods we love, which sums up the state of the more and more standardized world we live in.

"According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 95 percent of the world's calories now come from 30 species. Of 30,000 edible plant species, we cultivate about 150. And of the more than 30 birds and mammals we've domesticated for food, only 14 animals provide 90 percent of the food we get from livestock. The loss is staggering: Three-fourths of the world's food comes from just 12 plants and five animal species."

It would be enough to digress here.

We live in a world where it appears that we have endless diversity and choice. Yet, the irony is that all this apparent choice superficially comes from few companies, few species and little genetic diversity, but in different shapes, with different food colorings, and different wrappers.

Take the wine industry in the USA where 10 companies control 82% of all wine produced. Conglomerates swallow up wineries with family names to appear to give you the sense of choice and so that you feel you are supporting families, when in reality, that family sold off the company, took the profits and left skid marks to get out of one of the most labor intensive businesses.

And of the millions of brands and kinds of wine you seem to be able to choose from, 85% of the world's hectares of vineyards come from less than 15 varietals. Many aren't even aware that more than 15 grape varietals exist in the world, since the commercial wine world has reduced wine to Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Malbec, Zinfandel, and a handful of others out of ease in growing and ease in selling.

Think about it... how many more grapes can you name?

We should stop and take a moment to thank Italy - I will at least. If there is anyone that looks after biodiversity more than anyone, it's local communities, who are less concerned with dealing with the world of mass production. Scale of production will always favor sameness.

In Italy, we have over 1,800 grape varietals to choose from, 150,000 licensed winemakers, and for the wine club, we always support those who appreciate this and seek to save and revive varietals that could be easily lost due to difficulty in production or difficulty in marketing since we know that (most of you) given the choice of Cabernet Sauvignon or Schioppettino will choose the Cabernet.

Why?

Simply because it's familiar and we feel comfortable and safe in familiarity. And the big wineries know this. Wine is slowly being reduced to Coca Cola, where it's more or less becoming all the same. Hence why even if you like Super Tuscans (of course because they taste familiar to what is commercially available) many Italians hate the idea of more Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah etc - all French grapes by the way - being planted now in Tuscany.

The loss of biodiversity doesn't stop with grapes. Of the 7,500 types of apples, no more than 100 are used commercially and less than 10 appear in most supermarkets. The Red Delicious being one of the more readily available, bred for its aesthetically pleasing size and color for the eyes, yet devoid of the flavor of the small, wild crab apples which I can remember picking from my grandmother's tree. Bananas have even a worse fate. We've reduced the 1000 types available to a mere single variety, the Cavendish, which equally lacks flavor for anyone who has ever been to Hawaii and tasted the punch of packed in flavor to these mini bananas growing wildly around the island.

But back to grapes and the beauty of Italy. I recall a walk in the vineyards on the border of Tuscany and Liguria with Ivan Terenzuola, whose grandfather purchased 3 hectares of land there after the Great Depression. Surely everyone knows Sangiovese, the predominant grape used in Chianti, with the highest production in Italy.

Most assume that it was the most important native grape of Tuscany, but its story actually follows the discourse above. From the studies of Ivan and the University of Florence, it's actually Canaiolo Nero which was the most prevalent grape of the area but not surprisingly Sangiovese won out, since after phylloxera and the necessity to graft the vines into the American rootstock, Sangiovese took to the graft more efficiently.

And I won't even mention that they also discovered 256 native grape varietals in their area. It's so sad to think of the demise of that biodiversity to a a mere single grape, Sanviovese, which in few exceptions from great producers in Montalcino, Montepulciano and the Chianti region, is mainly garbage made in quantity, not quality, over acidic, over matured, vinegary, often with brettanomyces, when Canaiolo is naturally refreshing and soft which you'll understand in La Merla della Miniera from Terenzuola.

WE LIKE WHAT WE LIKE.

But don't forget that we like what is usually what is familiar.

Every day you make a choice going through the check out lane to support or not support biodiversity. What are you putting in your shopping cart?

And do you really need to go to the supermarket, or can you find a local farmer's market to support local communities and biodiversity.

Go to the Italian section of wine, and get out of the supermarkets for wine. It's not even wine.

If you could see the ingredient list, grapes are only one ingredient amongst the 74 approved additives that you'll never know are in your wine since it's illegal to put an ingredient list on a bottle.

Support small artisans and local communities.It's the mission of our Italian Wine Club and we hope you'll join us. Don't forget that there was the potato famine of 1840. It could happen with anything that we put on our plates or consume. And extinction is forever.