What’s In A Name?: Soffocone di Vincigliata

Jeff Zalaznick — February 17, 2009

Whenever I go to Dell’Anima, I know that my buddy Joe Campanale (unless he is too busy over at L’Artusi that is) will always pair the delicious homestyle Italian food with a great and interesting bottle of Italian wine. Joe really outdid himself though, when he brought a bottle of the 2006 “Soffocone di Vincigliata” to my table. I was already sold when he told me that the wine had arrived just before it became illegal to import to the US, but it was the liquor authority’s reasoning for this decision that really blew me away.

In order to truly understand this, it is important to examine two incredibly charming aspects of Italian culture:

1) Small Tuscan towns each have their own distinctive character, which is one of the things that makes them so charming. The small town of Vincigliata exemplifies this notion. Located on the outskirts of Florence, Vincigliata is situated right next to the more famous town of Fiesole. Overlooking the beautiful Florentine skyline, tourists mostly know Vincigliata for its views, and, on occasion, for making some decent wines. For locals though, Vincigliata bears a totally different meaning. For Florentines, Vincigliata is the equivalent of “make out point”. Its vineyards are a place for lovers, and the perfect place to play a little game of Nasconda la Salsiccia, known in America as, “Hide The Salami”. In Italy, men live with their mothers until the day they are married (re: the term Mamino), so you can imagine that Vincigliata plays an incredibly significant role as Florentine men come of age.

2) Another charming aspect of Italian culture is the many terms they use for what we here in America call: a “blowjob”. Pompino, or the verb form Spompinare, Trombare or Bofilo all are used frequently. But, in all languages, there is always that term that takes slang to the next level of dirty, and when it comes to a blowjob in Italian, that word is: Suffocone.

After years of watching Florentine coeds roll around in his vineyards, one of the local Vincigliata winemakers decided to make a wine that celebrated this often overlooked part of Florentine life.

Thus, behold, the 2006 Soffocone di Vincgliata ….

In the US, wine labels are not allowed to have any sort of sexual imagery on them, and so, when they finally figured out what was painted on the bottle, that was the end. The wine itself was pretty good, but that being said, I poured half of it out and took the bottle.