At last it is May,
carrying me once more into a new countryside, a new farmhouse, another node of
agriculture and another example of living biologically in nature. May in
Tuscany and the poppies are everywhere—sometimes so brilliantly red you can
barely look at them, sometimes dusty and subdued like dull lipstick. I found a lost puppy one day as I was walking
along a country road who enthusiastically followed me home, though I did not
invite her. The family with whom I am staying has adopted her, and I have named
her Poppy after the scarlet fields in which she was found. Red seems to be the
theme of my stay here, for my business here in Montalcino is that of wine—Casa Raia produces Brunello and a Rosso
made of San Giovese, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Springtime in the world of
wine is the season for planting new vines, tending the new growths of more
mature vines, and caring for the general health of the vineyard using
biological, non-chemical methods. The
primary scourge of vineyards is the minuscule insect phylloxera which kills the roots of the plant, and can destroy an
entire vineyard rapidly and savagely. In fact, a few hundred years ago, phylloxera did kill nearly all the
European vines, causing an international wine crisis that was solved when somebody
discovered that American vines were unaffected by the insect. Vintners began to
graft European vines such as San Giovese and Syrah and all the others onto
American roots, allowing the European vines to grow safely without ever
exposing their roots to phylloxera.
This method is still used today (in fact, it is legally mandatory) and thus,
all great wines in Europe are borne from American roots.
I,
however, find myself in a situation contrary to that of the grapes in Tuscany.
I am a born and bred American woman, but my roots are here in Italy. Sometimes
I can actually see them! I find my
nose attached to dark-haired women on Vespas and hear my grandmother’s name, Guarino, murmured on street-corners in
Napoli. I am the result of my family’s Italian culture grafted onto American
soil, all mixed up with Lithuanian and German, Irish and British vines. Nearly all Americans can say the same—we are
mutts, we are blends, New World transplants. And here I am… finding my roots,
literally digging in the dirt (while sipping fine wine).
Ironically, very little Italian is being spoken these days and instead I have been
trying my hand at French. The couple
I am with is French/Canadian and their three children speak a strange combination
of Italian, French and English. The three year-old, Noa, often asks me to play
with him; “Would tu like to giocare avec moi?” To which I can only reply, “Si! Allons-y!”
…dawn breaks over
the forested hills, dew clinging to each blade of grass as the last stars fade
gracefully into the distilled blue of the morning sky. The goats begin to mew
and the chickens cluck quietly, still tucked snuggly in their coop. A cloud
inversion fills the valley below the waking farm. All is still in the last
moments of daybreak as I aim my sledgehammer at a three hundred year-old wall
and prepare to smash it to bits.
At the Ecovillaggio Tertulia near Florence the
primary work I have been allotted is to help restore an ancient Tuscan house
into a livable agritourismo, or bed
and breakfast. The walls are crumbling and as we scrape cracked paint from them
we find hand-painted frescos from before the second World War. In addition to
my new hobby of (de)construction, I help tend the garden (lettuce, onions,
tomatoes, basil, cucumber, arugula, cabbage, fava beans), and spend time with
the three timid goats. Four adults and three children make up this ecovillage,
along with various WWOOF volunteers and a smattering of cats, dogs, and
chickens. We are thirty minutes from Florence where there are always summertime
festivals, concerts and things to do when life feels too quiet up here in the
hills. Next weekend (my last in Italy!) there is to be a wine festival followed
by an artisanal ice cream event in the main piazza…
Speaking of ice
cream, I have been on a quest to seek the finest gelato in Italy and I am pleased to announce that I have found it!
In the city of Siena, not ten minutes walk from il Palio, is a bar/gelataria
that is always crowded. There I ordered un
gelato al gusto yogurt e melone (yogurt and cantelope) which made a lovely
little springtime color combination. I stepped out of the shop and took a lick
and suddenly a ray of light burst from the heavens and illuminated my gelato right there in the street,
blinding several nearby tourists and nearly knocking me off my feet. My
friends, I cannot find the words to describe just how smooth and creamy and fragrant that ice cream was, but I can
say that after four long and toiling months of sampling ice cream throughout
the country my search for the perfect gelato
has come to a close.
