TUSCANY UNDER THE SKIN : WALKING HIKING COOKING CULTURAL ARTS & CRAFTS TOURS

There's no snow on Monte Amiata yet. The bold clear blue of the mountain looks back at us across the great Val d'Orcia, past Pienza and the long row of cypress pines on the nearer horizon. Below us, the vineyards are suddenly russet gold. It's been a month since we stripped them of their fruit, now maturing in the vats, filling the cellar with their heady, musty scent.

The vendemmia this year took place in early October when it was decided that the grapes and the moon were right. And the weather. After a summer of drought when the whole province of Siena was yearning for rain no-one talks of anything other than what would happen if the rain came. "Che disastro!" Grapes love to be picked dry.

A key player in our vendemmia this year was Daniele, known as "the one with the glasses". Daniele is a young agronomist whose life ambition is to lift the local game in the production of its wine, especially since the area has been given the hard-earned D.O.C, a quality control which puts the Val d'Orcia wines up with the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and il Brunello. Behind those glasses he is serious, and totally severe. "Don't pick that bunch. Can't you see it's not quite ripe"... "This graspuliatrice (a machine which separates grapes from stalks) hasn't been cleaned well enough. Get the hose"..."Hot water, lots of it, quickly". I thought someone was giving birth.

But the grape harvest is always fun. In a flurry of tractors, carts, cases, ladders, baskets and scissors the pickers headed for the vines. This year among the pickers we had two resolute Aussies, Coralie from Queensland and Raimonda from Melbourne. Alongside them worked two Italian friends, Stefano, an accountant who had never met a grape in the wild and his wife Carla from Sardinia, an old hand. Other old hands were neighbours Giotto and Rosa who always come to help out, to enjoy the gossip and bad jokes that pass from vine to vine. Given the mix of languages this year the gossip became a total tangle and the jokes got worse.

Our good mates Onedo and Orfella Bindi from Poggio d'Arcoli, the farm up the hill, were there too. Wise to the ways of this corner of Tuscany, generous in sharing what they know, they offer help we cannot do without. And then Onedo has an endless supply of local stories which range from Etruscan times to the minutia of local village life. "Did you hear about the baker ..."

Until this year it's been Orfella who prepared the harvest lunch. Now it was my turn. A harvest lunch is serious business. A way of saying thanks, an opportunity for everyone to get together, to eat abundantly, to try out one another's new wines, and of course more gossip, more jokes and tall tales. Even Daniele cracked a smile.

What did we eat? Plates of prosciutto, mortadella, finocchiona and olives. A polenta with sauce and local sausages, a salad of wild greens. The full range of local pecorino cheeses, fruit in season. And cantucci, those crunchy almond biscuits which of course call for Vin Santo, the sweet golden desert wine. And grappa, so sharp in contrast, and yet another chance to taste someone else's product and compare and comment and remember another story "Did you hear about the butcher ..." Around us the limpid air and soft light of a Tuscan autumn, the blessed season, the best time of year: truffles and mushrooms waiting in the forest below. And, of course the picking of the olives ... ah, but that's another story. Let's hope it doesn't rain.

How come everyone left so early? At only 5.00 pm? Was it the cattle, pigs and fowls 'da governare' and prepare for the night? Or was it that last heartrending version of "Walzing Matilda" that sent everyone home into the soft evening? What a great day.

Saluti
Ugo and Barbara