Tag Archives: Wine

Vendemia!

10 Thursday Sep 2009

Posted by in Italian habits and customs, Italy, Piemonte, Uncategorized

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dump 'em

Our cousins invited us to help out at their Vendemia in Piemonte this past weekend, an invitation we eagerly await every year.  The vendemia is the annual grape harvest, and from all reports this is one of the best years ever, in terms of both quantity and quality.  There was lots of rain early in the season, and then it was dry for a couple of weeks, which made the fruit very sweet.

It’s a family affair in a big way.  Our cousins’ extended family includes three generations ranging in age from 17 months to I’m-not-telling (but I would guess early 80’s), probably about 35 people including the children who are too young to pick.

All the grapes are cut from the vine by hand.  Fortunately the vines are well managed, and most of the grapes seem to grow between knee and shoulder height.

cutting grapes

grapes (2)

We put the bunches of grapes in plastic buckets which are then emptied into the bucket loader of a small tractor.

grape ferry (2)

This in turn is dumped into the trailer. With so many willing workers, their vineyard is harvested in about a day and a half. Usually, one of the uncles told me, they collect two medium trailers full of grapes. This year there was a small load, a medium load, and a huge load:

dump 'em (4)

Later in the afternoon the vineyard manager, who takes care of several vineyards in the area, appears with his big tractor and hauls the grapes to the place where they are pressed (in this case Cascina Orsola, some 38 km distant).

tractor (12)

It’s a LOT of work (my estimate is about 250 person-hours) and while everyone loves doing it, they are also very  happy when it’s finished for another year.

Finished! (3)

Then comes one of the highlights of the weekend: the communal meal!  The older generation used to have a fish restaurant in Genova, so the cooking is outstanding.  This year they served us the world’s most delicate and light lasagna, roast beef with drippings, french fries, eggplant  that was lemony and garlicky, fruit, cheese and home-baked cake.

adults eat (2)

There are small and medium-sized family owned vineyards all through this part of Piemonte.  I imagine the scenes above are repeated a hundred-fold at this season, each with a different cast of characters and a slightly different view.  This must have been what farming was like back in the days before agri-business took over, both in the US and here.  It’s refreshing that it still exists.

If what ‘they’ say is true, there will be some superb wines coming from this years’ grapes.  So  Salute!  Cincin!  Bottoms up!

Another fun way to find wine

13 Saturday Sep 2008

Posted by in Italy, Piemonte, Travel, Uncategorized

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In an earlier post I mentioned the filling-station style of wine procurement.

An even more satisfying way to get your wine is to go to the vineyard where the grapes are grown and the wine produced.  This is a popular pastime in Tuscany, which is famous for its red wines, especially Chianti and Brunello, and where many of the vineyards are large and have impressive tasting rooms.

It’s no less a pleasure in Piemonte, which in fact boasts more grape varieties and wines than our neighbors to the south in Tuscany. (As the Italianmade website says,  “For craftsmenship, respect for tradition and devotion to native vines in their historical habitats, the Piedmontese have no rivals in Italy.”)

I don’t want you to think I’m working for the Region of Piemonte… it’s just that because of family and friends it is a frequent destination when we travel.  It is, in my opinion, every bit as beautiful a landscape as La Toscana; however it is much less touristic.  Here is a photo of some rolling hills of vines.

I also really don’t want you to think I’m in the employ of the Rinaldi family. They are one of many Piemontese wine producers; it’s just that we’ve happened to visit their vineyard twice now,

The Rinaldis are a small producer of wine.  They live, grow grapes and make wine in Ricaldone, a tiny town (population +/- 750) famous in Piemonte for the high quality of its wine.

We first discovered them  a year ago, on the Monday after Easter, which is a holiday here.  We were driving through the countryside after a visit with our cousins near Aqui Terme, and their sign looked welcoming.  The gate was open, so holiday or not, we drove in and threw ourselves on their mercy.  We had providently brought our 20-liter plastic jug.  The young Signor Rinaldi, who is both knowledgeable and extremely enthusiastic, was nice enough to interrupt his holiday, give us a tour and a private tasting, and fill our container with his delicious dolcetto.

We arrived unannounced again this year with our jug (never travel without your camera, your trowel and your wine jug!), on a Saturday afternoon not too long ago.  To our amazement Andrea Rinaldi and his mother both remembered us and gave us a very warm welcome.  After giving us a tour of all her pretty gardens, La Signora dug a bunch of her portulaca for us to bring home and put in our own garden. Her son was, once again, as lively and enthusiastic as could be.  Carrying a wine glass, he took us right down to the cellar where he pulled tastes for us from the spigots at the bottom of the huge stainless tanks in which the grape juice becomes wine.

The wine stays in the big tanks for a while, and later is put in casks if required.  This year we fell in love with his moscato, a sweet wine that is perfect with dessert.  It turns out that 55% of his production is moscato, something we didn’t realize last year.  A small producer, he makes 1,200 quintale a year.  A quintale is 100 kilograms and one Kilogram = 1 liter, so that’s 120,000 liters of wine.  Sounds like a lot to me, but as wine production goes it’s on the small side.

The Rinaldi wine is prize-winning; near the office there is a wall of plaques and certificates to prove it.  Can you get the wine in the U.S.?  As a matter of fact, you can; at least you can get the moscato.  It is marketed there under the somewhat dubious name of Bug Juice.  Did we fill our containers with Moscato?  We did not.  It is not sold in bulk.  We bought a half case and for the princely sum of E 1.55 per liter filled our 20-liter jug with Rinaldi’s wonderful cortese, a crisp, light white wine.

There are some photographs of Ricaldone and the Rinaldi Winery in Photographs on the right.  If you have the chance, visit a winery some day.  You don’t have to be in Tuscany or California to do so; there are wineries all over the US as well as Italy.  It is great fun, and an economical way to buy your wine.

Fill ‘er up

17 Saturday May 2008

Posted by in Italy, Liguria, Rapallo, Wine

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Some people don’t drink wine.  I know!  But it’s true.  And those that don’t usually have very good reasons for not.  But for those who do, Italy is a great place to live.  According to Italianmade.com, Italy produces and exports more wine than any other country, and according to Patrick McGovern, an expert on ancient beverages, wine may well have been made as long ago as the Neolithic age (8,000 – 4,000 BC)(how much would a 3,000 year old wineskin of Neanderolo fetch at auction, do you think??)  Italians have been making wine for a very, very long time, and they’re very, very good at it.

Mountainous Liguria does not have a vine-friendly geography, and most wines here are made by families for home consumption, though there’s some lively production down in the Cinque Terre.  But our neighbor to the north, Piemonte, though ranked only 6th of Italy’s regions in production, has more DOC zones than any other region.  Delicious wines come from Piemonte, and many of them make their way to Ligurian tables, as do Tuscan wines.  Piemonte vines include barbera, dolcetto, grignolino, freisa, cortese and nebbiolo (from which come Barolo, Barbaresco and Gattinara wines).  (All these fascinating details come from the italianmade site.)

Here’s a quick primer on the four categories of Italian wine: 

Vino da Tavola, or table wine, is just that.  It’s usually pretty undistinguished, but often pleasantly drinkable. It comes from who knows where and generally comes in one of two colors – red or white, and one of two states – fizzy or still.

Vino a Indicazion Geografica (IGT) means that the wine is from a particular geographical area.  Other than that, see above.

Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) means, again, that the wine is from a particular geographical area, but there are stringent guidelines relating to its production and naming.

Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG or DOC/G) means the same as DOC, except that the rules for production are even more rigid, the amount produced is limited, and the wine must be tasted and approved by a committee – how can one serve on that committee, I’d like to know!

You might think that with so much wine washing around the country the inhabitants would be staggering about in a constant state of inebriation – not so!  Of course Italy has, like most other countries, a certain amount of alcoholism and other diseases and problems related to over-consumption.  But in general Italians are relatively careful drinkers, and they drink far and away more wine than beer or spirits (The World Health Organization reported in 2002 that almost 16% of Italians abstain from drinking completely, and the amount of alcohol consumed has been decreasing steadily since the 1960’s). 

So, just how much do Italians drink?  Ha.  The answer might surprise you (it did me).  WHO statistics from 2003, the most recent I could find, show a per capita (over 15 years old) alcohol consumption of 8.0 liters a year, which doesn’t seem so much to someone who can put away half a liter with dinner.  The U.S. figure is 8.6 liters.  Who drinks the most?  Ugandans!  17.6 liters, and who could blame them?  Who drinks the least (and perhaps fibs a little)?  Yemen and the United Arab Emirates at 0.0.  Germans drink 12.0 liters and Irish 13.7 liters per year.

But enough facts and figures.  The whole point of this exercise was to talk about the beauties of Italian wines, from the residue-laden bottles produced at home and lovingly stored for years in dusty cantinas, to the agri-produced gleaming bottles that are exported and sold for lots of money.

You can buy your wine many places (including often at the producing vinyards themselves) – at a specialty shop, where you will find your DOC and DOCG wines along with the others; at the super market where you never know exactly what you will find; or, as we like to do, at the ‘filling station’, a store where you can buy wine in bulk and carry it away in your own container.  This picture was taken at a new cantina in Santa Margherita Ligure, and the young lady is filling a sample bottle for me with Riesling.  They have several other wines available as well.  Big Market in Rapallo (Corso Mameli) also sells vino sfuso, that is wine in bulk.

How much will you pay for your wine?  That all depends, of course.  Oddly, price is not always tied to quality.  It is possible to get some very decent wines at a reasonable cost.  In the specialty shops you are likely to pay E 4 and up, way up, for a bottle; at the super market you can buy beginning at about E 2; vino sfuso?  At the Santa Margherita Cantina I paid E 1.70 a liter for that Riesling – pretty reasonable, I think.

Wine is central to Italian culture and eating.  Best of all, it is delicious, it can make you feel delightfully giddy, and if you ask your doctor, he may well recommend one glass of red a day because of all the good flavonoids and other antioxidants contained therein.

Cin Cin!