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LETTER FROM TUSCANY Vendemmia At Trove
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IT HAS BEEN a hot dry summer, good for our grapes, because the soil of our old vineyard - stretching at a high point of the little valley and limited by the "Trove" creek - is well moistened. Without sun, the grapes can be poor in sugar content. This year our grapes ripened well, producing a good sugar content which consequently will give it a high alcoholic gradation. Generally, the end of September/beginning of October is "Vendemmia" time, the happy period in which the farmers pick and produce their wine. In the old days, the best bunches of white and red grapes used to be collected separately and hung to dry along the rafters of a special room inside the farm house. The juice produced by these grapes was added at a later stage to the new wine to give it a second fermentation burst. This made the Chianti slightly fizzy and its bouquet richer. There was a time when we used to call our neighbour's wine a "kick in the mouth" for its sharp and bitter taste. Our neighbours were so proud of their wine. "No chemicals, no preservatives, just grapes" they used to say. The fact was that in those days the farmers were going more for quantity than for quality, adding to the fermentation vats non selected grapes, ripe and not ripe, and most of all grapes with all their woody stalks. Today most farmers have a "Graspugliatrice". The grapes passing through this simple machine loose their woody storks rich in bitter tannin, plus the quality of the final product is acquiring an ever increasing importance. The vendemmia is always done after a period of dry and sunny weather - never after the rain. To produce a good and healthy wine that can be stored for years, the grapes need to be well ripe and dry. The "Vendemmia" is always a family-and-friends affair and this year as well we helped our neighbours, the Bindi family, to pick their grapes. This time, about a dozen people helped with the vendemmia; there was Giotto and his wife Rosa, "Sparrow" and and his wife, Giorgio and son Carlo, and of course Luca and Pierluigi, Onedo's sons-in-law. |
When lots of people gather there is always place for gossip, singing and laughter. Onedo Bindi, the head of the family, drives the tractor pulling the wagon on which the boxes of grapes are loaded. Onedo stands on the wagon, grabbing the baskets from the pickers and emptying them into the square plastic boxes piled on top of each other. I remember the time when the pulling was done by huge white "Chianina" oxen yoked to a wooden cart. Back then, the baskets were made of willow or broom, but those were the old days when the farmers used to produce most of the things they needed for their existence - not just the wine and the "extravergine" Olive Oil, but also the prosciutto, the salamis, the sausages, all the fruit conserves, their own bread, and the bricks, the roof tiles, their tools of work, furniture, etc. For this occasion, Orfella, Onedo's wife, prepared a meal fit for kings. A home-made pasta, "Pici" with tomato sauce, roast chicken and rabbit with lots of garlic and rosemary, roast potatoes, green and tomato salads just picked from the garden and, of course, wine - last year's wine. This year the wine of the area has been included in a newly established DOC (Di 'Origine Controllata) of controlled origine, the "Orcia Wine". This will give new impulse to the production of quality wine which, with the local Extravergine Olive Oil, "Olio di Podere", will be another tourist, economic and culinary pulling card for this small area of Tuscany in the Comune of Trequanda within the Province of Siena - an area full of art, history, thermal spas, cathedrals, good food and jovial people. Ciao, |
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