When Alessandro Rotolo came to Houston from Italy’s Friuli region at the end of January to present his family’s Schiopetto wines, the coronavirus was a non-topic. Not once did it come up in our conversation, although it had already been killing people in China for more than a month.

The same was true when Salvatore Ferragamo, whose famous fashion family produces the Il Borro wines in Tuscany, hosted a dinner at Emmaline the same night. This despite the fact that Ferragamo and his wife did visit a doctor between wine events that day because both were under the weather. In fact, he had to beg off from a scheduled interview with me. Their diagnosis, fortunately, was travel fatigue. No one thought twice about it, either.