Wine In The Making

I’m still on grapes but this time dadannn….red blood wine! Saturday morning after a week of the harvest “il musto” the mix of grape juice and it’s skin must be finally squeezed and transfered to the barrel where it will rest all through the winter until spring before it can be tasted “ il vino novello ” the new wine.

At the moment the mystery of wine making has caught my attention, i have always taken for granted that a glass of red wine on the dinner table as something to accompany meals and happy evenings and events with friends but that this liquid has centuries of history to it! Even the rise and fall of empires has seen to its making…never the less in my own small village, i have come to know more of its process not by books but by being part of it’s pprocess. From caring of the vines, to harvesting, squeezing the fruit and finally to drinking it!!!

Sounds simple, it is actually, only that it requires lots of effort and time to savor every drop of it. Everything is natural from fruit to wine nothing is added only love and passion.

This years harvest promises a good one full and intensely red!!! RED for PASSION!

ALLA SALUTE!!

September

I Ioove this month…. not because it’s my birth month but because lots of things happen in this period!

It represents transition, end of summer where beautiful memories of hot days in the beach, vacations to paradise destinations, new encounters and love affairs that bloomed (they always start on summers) are carried on for the beginning of autumn yet that lingering sensation of still warm days and a little fresher nights…hmmm.

It is also the third quarter of the year on which one has weighed how he’s done this year and plans how he would end it? On the positive? No? Well there is still time left….and so he rushes..hehehe…soon when the months ends in “ber” Halloween, Thanksgiving, then voila’ Cristmas time!! Running so fast, nah, soon you will realize in a batter of the eyelids and we’re there!

But September…hmmm, one lingers, the days are not so short yet, the harvest are all done there’s lots of fervor in the atmosphere everykind of preparations to face the long winter but also ….lot’s of fairs!!!

Yeah, fairs of everykind, for the mushroom, for the wine, marmalades, chocolates, for the wilds(as much as i don’t approve of it the hunting season also opens in September..ugh), for whatever feeble reasons to have one!

I adore, yes, adore going to fairs…it gives every person an opportunity to be worry free, just be there and absorb the atmosphere it emanates!!! And what more representative to fairs than a stand loaded with these…..heavenly delicacies?

Enjoy your September… and wish me HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Falcianello Chianti Docg

Sound familiar?? Well to all of us Andrea’s friends yes!!!

We dearly call his home produced wine Falcianello with sure reference to Brunello di Montalcino…(modest huh) and of course since it is us who help him harvest it our love and affection poured into each bottle! DOCG denominated origin controlled and guaranteed, although his’ is not commercially produced but it is totally and wholly  for family and friends consumption..hahaha.

Every year as sort of friends reunion we help him harvest and process the grapes produced in his small but well cultivated grapevine with a view and glimpse of the Chianti Hills worldly renomated for its red wine. After a half days work we (23 or so family and old friends of years) entertain ourselves with food and of course bottle after bottle of Falcianello….a fun way of being with friends and living the tradition…chin chin..’til next year!

The Hill Across

For more than 15 years now every morning when i open the persiana the green and hilly side of Florence greets me and never fails to warm and make me smile. I have always wondered what lies on that other side of Arno and promised myself one day to go and visit the place…that

day took me a lifetime!!!

What took you so long?? One would ask, but i have nooo answers, or i do but won’t admit the real reason… The’re lots of things i want to do but has always set aside… but that is another story of this long and colorful life journey!!!

There’s time for everything and it is never too late ain’t it???

Well finally that promised day was Saturday afternoon with the sun up and warm i rode to that hill across my window…..then i said to myself what the hell took you so long????

I have missed this Castello del Trebbio for over these years…unforgivable…not knowing everytime i open my windows just behind  the vegetation…just across the hill lies this wonderful and charming place. Well anyway Tuscany is full of these marvelous historic places each one claiming attention for each uniqueness…but this one is near my place very near … a distance of a glance away!

That day was a real surprise… a busload of tourists were scattered here and there with glasses of wine and i was attracted like a bee to a flower and got inside the small shop who sells the produce of the Castle…guess what? Wine and Grappa…one can directly fill her glass from the large wooden barrels. I took home a bottle of Grappa!