As a young child in Naples, Italy, Sergio Esposito sat at his kitchen table observing the daily ritual of his large, loud family bonding over fresh local dishes and simple country wines. While devouring the rich bufala mozzarella, still sopping with milk and salt, and the platters of fresh prosciutto, sliced so thin he could see through it, he absorbed the profound relationship of food, wine, and family in Italian culture.Growing up in Albany, New York, after emigrating there with his family, he always sat next to his uncle Aldo and sipped from his wineglass during their customary hours-long extended family feasts. Thus, from a very early age, Esposito came to associate wine with the warmth of family, the tastes of his mother’s cooking—and, above all, memories of his former life in Italy. When he was in his twenties, he headed for New York and undertook a career in wine, beginning a journey that would culminate in his founding of Italian Wine Merchants, now the leading Italian wine source in America. His career offered him the opportunity to make frequent trips back to Italy to find wine for his clients, to learn the traditions of Italian winemaking, and, in so doing, to rediscover the Italian way of life he’d left behind.Passion on the Vine is Esposito’s intimate and evocative memoir of his colorful family life in Italy, his abrupt transition to life in America, and of his travels into the heart of Italy—its wine country—and the lives of those who inhabit it. The result is a remarkably engaging and entertaining wine/travel narrative replete with vivid portraits of seductive places—the world-famous cellars of Piedmont, the sweeping estates of Tuscany, the lush fields of Campania, the chilly hills of Friuli, the windy beaches of Le Marche; and of memorable people, diverse and vibrant wine artisans—from a disco-dancing vintner who bases his farming on the rhythm of the moon to an obsessive prince who destroys his vineyards before his death so that his grapes will never be used incorrectly.Esposito’s luscious accounts of the wonderful food and wine that are so much a part of Italian life, and his poignant and often hilarious stories of his relationships with his family and Italian friends, make Passion on the Vine an utterly unique and enchanting work about Italy and its eternally seductive lifestyle.

作为意大利那不勒斯的一个小孩，塞尔吉奥-埃斯波西托坐在他的厨房餐桌旁，观察他的大家庭在新鲜的当地菜肴和简单的乡村葡萄酒中的日常仪式。当他吞下还沾着牛奶和盐的浓郁的布法拉马苏里拉奶酪，以及切得薄得可以看透的新鲜意大利火腿拼盘时，他吸收了意大利文化中食物、酒和家庭的深刻关系。在与家人移民到纽约奥尔巴尼后，他总是坐在他叔叔奥尔多旁边，在他们习惯的长达数小时的大家庭盛宴中用酒杯啜饮。因此，从很小的时候起，埃斯波西托就把葡萄酒与家庭的温暖、他母亲烹饪的味道以及最重要的是对他以前在意大利生活的回忆联系起来。当他20多岁时，他前往纽约，开始了葡萄酒的职业生涯，并开始了一个旅程，最终他创立了意大利葡萄酒商行，现在是美国主要的意大利葡萄酒来源。他的职业使他有机会经常回意大利为他的客户寻找葡萄酒，学习意大利的酿酒传统，并在这样做的过程中重新发现他已经离开的意大利生活方式。《葡萄树上的激情》是埃斯波西托的亲密和令人回味的回忆录，讲述了他在意大利丰富多彩的家庭生活，他突然过渡到美国的生活，以及他进入意大利的心脏--葡萄酒之乡和居住在那里的人的生活。其结果是一个非常有吸引力和娱乐性的葡萄酒/旅行叙事，充满了对诱人地点的生动描述--皮埃蒙特的世界著名酒窖、托斯卡纳的广阔庄园、坎帕尼亚的郁郁葱葱的田野、弗留利的寒冷丘陵、马尔凯的多风海滩。还有令人难忘的人，多样化和充满活力的葡萄酒工匠--从一个跳迪斯科的葡萄酒商，他根据月亮的节奏进行耕作，到一个痴迷的王子，他在死前毁掉了他的葡萄园，以便他的葡萄永远不会被错误地使用。 埃斯波西托对作为意大利生活一部分的美妙食物和葡萄酒的生动描述，以及他与家人和意大利朋友之间的凄美和经常是搞笑的故事，使《葡萄藤上的激情》成为一部关于意大利及其永恒的诱人生活方式的完全独特和令人陶醉的作品。