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Volterra

18 Oct
2009
Today Greta and I went to have breakfast in town so after saying farewell to her mum and Zio who have been down for at least a week, we took the bicycles out from the hut (they’ve all been recently fixed thankfully) and pedalled on down to Donoratico.
We chose our local caffe’ haunt and had a pasta con crema and a caffe’ latte. Then we strolled up the street with our bikes and browsed through shops, ran into Alessio down the street, ran into friends at a homeware store, etc then pedalled on back home.
We decided to make the journey over to Volterra for the day as it would take just under an hour to get there. The road we needed to take wound round and round and round as you made your way up the large hill to the top of the town. They’re working a lot of the land down below at the moment so it was less green and more browny in some parts as you’re driving up. Once you reach the top though, park the car and get out it has breathtaking mountainous views, and you can see the blue sea beyond.
We made our way through the streets and browsed in some shops, watched a kids potato sack race in the main piazza, strolled around some more and took some photos.
One shop we went into had lots of paper things which I’m a sucker for and I found two gorgeous postcards in the Old Pubblicita’ format that I adore so bought those: only 0,50 E each.
Then they had some larger posters for which I found a cool wine one with Greve, Chianti on it for only 5 E, a real bargain so got that. The old lady behind the counter was so lovely and cute and wrapped it up for me so it wouldn’t get damaged. She reminded me of our old cousin Anna in Asiago.
Another lovely story was when Greta and I walked into an artists shop that had the best music playing. It was like you were in a musical film from the 1920’s. To the right were some stairs where you looked up and saw the mad artist at work. He saw us, and we walked on into the shop space to browse around and he came singing down the stairs, grabbed two little things and presented us each with one saying in Italian ‘one for you, and one for you’ and gave us this tiny ceramic man head!
Then he walked back up the stairs singing his sweet little tune. We thanked him and said goodbye and went on our merry way too.
Finally on our way back through the streets we’d just been along the side of the town that faces the sea beyond the mountains and an older woman walking past us spoke out (it seemed to no one in particular) about how one can see Corsica today because it’s so clear. Greta and I had seen the land mass of la Cipria (i think it’s called), a small island off the coast from Tuscany. But thought that the large mass further in the background couldn’t possibly be Corsica because it is very rare that one can see it from Tuscany. Well, in fact it was and this woman who obviously lived in the town was clearly very excited by that fact!

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Fish – Pesce

17 Oct
2009

The good thing about living in a coastal town is that they like to eat fish frequently. I remember mum telling me you can never say no to fish as it’s so good for you, so I take her advice and make sure I sample each morsel that is offered my way. Most of the time I’m not sure of the exact translation of what sort of fish I am eating, but I’ll take a stab at listing some of the things I’ve eaten so far whilst here:

Shark

Fresh Calamari

Sardines

Octopus

Shrimp

Prawns

Mussels

Dried salted cod (baccalà)

Salmon

Swordfish

…and the list goes on my friend

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Cinghiale!

7 Oct
2009

Sai cos’abbiamo mangiato sta sera alla casa di Alessio? Cinghiale! Or for those of you who don’t know what I’m on about…’we ate wild boar!’

Alessio’s mum cooked it perfectly using olive oil, onion, a little garlic, carrot and celery, sage and thyme and cooking the meat in small 2-3cm cubes with some sugo di pomodori e olivi for about 4 hours. The meat was tender (hunted only a couple of days ago by Alessio’s dad Michele in the hills nearby) and we ate it with a little polenta. Michele had also found like 100 porcini mushrooms the other day which the mum cooked some up in a spicier sauce. One of the best meals I have had here so far.

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Last picking day

25 Sep
2009
Today we picked the last of the fruit that will eventually go into Giorgio’s wines at a vineyard belonging to some ancient lawyer dude from Milan called Meda, or as I like to called him, Merda 🙂
We had only 24 rows of Cabernet Franc so by midday with six of us picking and one on the tractor we were already done!
Me with the snips! Watch out!
Roberto and Alessio
Back at the winery we processed all the 10 bins of fruit (whoo babbbbyyy 10 bins crazy!) then Greta and I worked on the pumpovers again. She’s been wearing gloves lately so she doesn’t ruin her lovely hands…I on the other hand as you can imagine do not have elegant hands, much to the mothers dismay, so I’m the one the majority of times on top of the tank.

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General happenings

21 Sep
2009

Ahh so we had our first drama in the winery yesterday and fortunately it was not my doing. What a surprise.

Greta and I rocked up to the winery at 9am and were about to begin the routine Babo (sugar level) check then do the pumpovers of the reds when we noticed that Tank 3 was sitting at a unusually cool 10C instead of a more convenient 29C during its fermentation. The reason being I hear you ask? The day before we had done the rounds Greta decided to turn on the cooling to bring it down a degree or two from 30C and…well…she forgot to close the valve and turn it off. At first she claimed she definitely did close it, but the valve was fully open and I think she later came to the realisation that she must have dreamt she closed it. Now we had a wine that was not fully fermented with the good chance that we’d shocked some of our precious yeast into an earlier sleep…whoops.
So, whilst Greta scurried off to go crush some grapes and avoid questioning from Giorgio, Francesca and I prepared some new bayanus yeast and got some wine heating up, added some sugar and made a nice brew. Then we had the problem of how to heat up a tank as quickly as possible when you do not have the machinery or hot water capabilities possible…it does probe an interesting question! Giorgio thought we could put the gas cylinder under the stainless steel tank and try heating up 80,000L of wine that way…umm…no. All my ideas involved using at least 200L of hot water, and they can’t even manage that. What we did in the end was use a probe light that emits heat convections throughout the wine and left it in there overnight so this morning when we came in it was 19C, and our yeast brew was content and had been accustomed to the alcohol so fingers crossed that things flow smoothly from now on!
Other concerns are that it has been raining quite heavily lately…seriously when it rains here…it rains! Amazing I haven’t seen anything like it in Melbourne in yonks.
Francesca will be heading off to Firenze next weekend and is planning on getting some Thai ingredients and so I’ve asked the mother to email me some recipes that we’ve enjoyed at home of Thai cooking to show off here and hopefully will turn out in a similar way. Some of my Moroccan or Turkish cooking is on the menu too at some stage, and a traditional pavlova when time permits! Other than that, I think chingiale (wild boar) is on the menu at some stage…it’s hunting season here so if you’re really lucky (not) you’ll get woken up by gunfire! Yay!

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Sono Italiana, finalmente!

8 Sep
2009

This morning I awoke to the annoying sound of vibration from my Australian mobile. Turns out I was not to be annoyed as it was a message from the dear mother saying, “Good morning bella, congratulations, as of today you are an Italian citizen!” So evidently dad has gone into the Italian Consulate of Melbourne and spoken with Antonio who had already filed our documents and sent away all the papers to our Commune over here! Woo hoo! Now I am having my certificate of citizenship sent over here so if any bloody Carabinieri pull me up I can flash that back in their faces! Ha!

In the meantime I have a photocopy which my boss Giorgio is using to get my codice fiscale (tax file number) and I’ll also eventually go to the Commune and get a carta di identicà (identity card).

This morning we did a whole bunch of pumpovers on the red wines that are fermenting. Greta at one stage had a really blond moment evidently and opened the tank valve after she’d connected her hose but I was still holding onto my end as I had not climbed on top of the tank yet. So I’m about to head up then notice a stream of red stuff coming in my direction at a rapid pace through my end of the hose and I had about a second before I was able to quickly clap my hand over the end and stop it spraying everywhere before yelling in her direction, “CHIUDI LA VALVOLA GRETA! CHE CAZZO FAI?!?!” (excuse the language…and the pun! Haha)

Apart from that tiny bit of drama us girls went off with some boxes of wine to Bolgheri, dropped them off then decided to grab an aperativo before lunch, so a glass of spumante was sent my way! What lovely work! I’ve been taking snapshots of video footage with my camera today to put together in a way to make a small film of a day during vintage…though it will end up being sort of a joke as today was not that busy, with us drinking during work hours and what not. Ah well, nice to see what it’s like over here. I’ll work on getting the video posted…

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I uomini!

2 Sep
2009

So I have been at work a few times now and nutted the place out. It is located in Donoratico – a nice 15minute bike ride from our place (I’m referring to a pushbike Nonna, not a motorbike)! We have lent some bikes to ride to work but I have to have mine repaired after a dodgy pedal continually wants to fall off and onto the road when I ride it. The winery itself is nothing like the winery I worked at last year that was obviously completely ostentatious in order to live up to its name and appeal to the tourists. Giorgio makes his wines here but there are also about three other wineries who come in and process their fruit and do their own thing too at the same time. Giorgio also makes wine on the side for a couple of very small businesses apart from that. The winery at least is very clean, and efficient and easy to work with. There is the main cellarhand Roberto who is lovely and non-chauvinistic to work with. Thank goodness. I have already come across some rich man and his ‘I’ve never worked a day in my life’ son who used to own Simenthall (crappy meat in a tin Company) and now venture in wine I suppose who saw that there were three women working in the winery (Francesca, Greta and myself) and said to Giorgio, “Why have so many women? Your wine will not be as good this year because of it.” To which Giorgio replied that he had no problem with us bimbe’s as he calls us. I’m extremely glad that Giorgio has turned out to be quite the modern guy, he loves to cook and as I mentioned, is not in any way chauvinistic. I think I’m lucky he’s like that. There aren’t too many guys in Italy that are like this, I can tell you that.

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Come verde sono tutte le cose qua!

31 Aug
2009
One of the first things I have noticed about this part of Tuscany that I am in after travelling around with Greta quite a bit in the car to the beach and around the place, is that is is really green. Being towards the end of summer I would have thought (just based on pictures I’d seen of Tuscany) that it would be more like golden cascading hills with the odd Cyprus tree thrown in there. But it’s actually quite cool, since I’m only a few kilometres from the Tyrrhenian Sea it obviously has a more maritime climate and thankfully a soft sea breeze that makes the world of difference in the afternoon and at night.
Apart from that, that landscape is overtly green and everywhere I lookfrom my bedroom window I can see just heaps of different shades of this colour! It’s great! The other thing is that this Maremma coastline is covered in forest…so where I would have thought there would be bare countryside, I’m surrounded by trees…and lots of sea pines.

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Sono arrivata a Bolgheri!

28 Aug
2009
Alright so I’m finally here in the Bolgheri area of Tuscany. It wasn’t as bad a flight this time, after you’ve done it once, you get the gist of how to time yourself to be as little jetlagged as possible on arrival. Plus the fact that I knew what I was doing with the Italian train system gave me that edge of confidence I’d lacked last time.

The flight itself was your typical 25 hours including the stopover in Singapore. I bought myself a nifty little laptop bag to replace the dodgy one I’d created back home and that had already given me a nasty pain in the shoulder. I’d been so positive about my packing leading up to today thinking that I had just 20-21kg of stuff, being so proud of myself with the work clothes, normal clothes, shoes, etc…then I realised that I hadn’t been measuring the whole backpack properly and in actual fact my bag was a hefty beast at 27kg. Hence I had to do the bogan country thang and wear my manly work boots on the plane, then somehow cart them with me after I’d converted to thongs in Singapore. Let’s just say that if carry your sports bag on just one arm like a lady and make it look like it’s really light and under the required 7kg (when it is really cutting off your circulation and you can feel your pulse slowly fading in the one arm)…well hey, they don’t ask you to weigh your bag and you walk right through, one functioning-arm less!

Once the flight was over I was lucky enough that my bags came through in the first decent load onto the carrier. Then it was just me and my three bloody bags to lug around the airport until I reached the station, got my tickets from the airport to Roma Trastevere, then continued on from there to San Vincenzo. Once I reached Roma Trastevere I made a phone call to my boss Giorgio to let him know I was alive, and well and truly on the way to the area. He sounded absolutely lovely and reassured that I’m not a complete liar and can actually speak some Italian and wasn’t lying in my curriculum vitae and emails to him. Two and a half hours later, after spending the train ride to San Vincenzo with a man who had a staring problem sitting directly opposite me, I arrived at the coastal town of San Vincenzo where I was greeted by my boss Giorgio Meletti-Cavallari, his girlfriend Francesca and the other girl who’d just arrived yesterday from Milan, Greta.

We drove off together in the car and talked about how everything went, how my last name is said with an emphasis on the ‘g’ in MeneGazzo and not like a C to make it MeneCazzo…you Italians out there will get it. In summation, they are all equally lovely. Giorgio is 30years old, is very open and always has a smile on his face. He started his own business back in the early 2000’s and his father, Piermario Meletti-Cavallari is the man who owned and ran Grattamacco, a very well-known label of some beautiful wines from the Bolgheri area. Francesca is 24years old and just this year finished studying Enology too. She is your typical Italian, brown haired, though with green eyes, tanned and gorgeous. Greta is my age and too finished her degree this year in Enology but has had very little experience working only one vintage a couple of years ago. Her and I are living together in separate rooms in the large villa that will eventually be Giorgio’s house.

La Villa Borgeri

For now he still lives with his parents in their gorgeous estate surrounded by vineyards up near Castagneto Carducci.

That night we go to Giorgio’s friends place for his birthday party and swim in their pool, eat some lovely food, and drink some of Giorgio’s wine he shows me. By the end of the night I am about to fall off my chair from extreme tiredness so I’m off to bed by 11pm. Poor form, but they understand with what, my almost 30hour journey to get here!

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TRE BICCHIERI!

25 Oct

2008

Today was speciale, magnifico e troppo buono. I had been planning on attending the Salone del Gusto festival all week and last night Manuela tells me that Giorgio has asked her and I to accompany him to the awards ceremony for Tre Bicchieri in Torino. Phwoarrr!

Tre Bicchieri is part of the Slow Food festival (a global organisation promoting healthy living and eating) and gives out awards (maximum of two per producer) to wines that are outstanding in all of Italy. There were 331 wine awards and two of them went to La Spinetta, the winery I’ve been working for the last few months. One award was for the 2006 Monferrato Rosso Pin and the other for the 2005 Barbaresco Starderi. La Spinetta have a really strong export component with their brand, especially in the United States where their modern styles appeal to a large number of palates. It has helped them reign in the status of a winery that ranks second to Gaja in terms of the Tre Bicchieri awards.

After the awards ceremony, there is always a tasting that takes place on alternate levels of all the wines involved in the Tre Bicchieri program. Considering time constraints and the fact we also had to work, Manuela and I determined we would have to swap shifts between manning the La Spinetta table and assisting with the tasting. Manuela, the dear, took the first stint behind the table, leaving me ample time to wind my way around the circular structure, glass in hand, trying Elio Grasso, Bruno Giacosa, Gaja, Giacomo Conterno, and so many more Nebbiolo wines. Piemonte was first on the list, you see. Well it was for me anyway. Call me lazy, but this event was so ideal in my view because instead of going around to visit all these wineries, I could taste the best wines of what they offer right here.

I also ventured downstairs and tried a range of Tuscan wines, as well as other reds to the likes of Amarone della Valpolicella and Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, before having to return to give Manuela a break.

At the start of the day Manuela and I had joked that I should pretend to be some famous Aussie journalist as we wove our way around the room. Thinking it was a ridiculous idea but persisting with the joke nevertheless, I said, ‘How about Jane Faulkner?’ It turns out I couldn’t pretend because she was there! I recognised her immediately when she first stumbled across the La Spinetta table as she had been a judge at the 2007 Rutherglen Wine Show that I stewarded at. I got such a shock at seeing her, especially after our comments from the morning, so before I knew it, ‘Jane Faulkner!’ in full Aussie fervour and excitement had blurted out of my mouth in her direction at the table.

She looked up at me with such a shocked face and muttered, ‘Oh no’.

I laughed, ‘Hey, you’re a celebrity!’

After introducing myself we had a quick chat and she commented that she would be hosting a tasting of Australian & New Zealand wines the following night with my friend Geoff Chilcott from Marchesi di Gresy. Such a small world! She asked me to join them, but I was unable to attend as I had been invited to winemaker Andrea Rivetti’s house for a special dinner with the family.

As the day progressed, I ran into the crew from Vietti as they veered towards our table. My friend who used to work at Shadowfax, Eddie McDougall, worked the vintage there this year and I had seen his photos so knew who Luca Currado was from that. Luca is the winemaker and was so lovely. It was clear why Eddie did not pick up any Italian when that whole crew spoke extremely good English.

Tre Bicchieri Highlights:

2006 Brancaia Il Blu – Toscana. Peppery start, mid-weighted, lacking finish but has decent flavours to make up for that.

2005 Cepparello by Isole e Olena in Toscana. Closed nosed but with slight hint of sweetened fruits. Very savoury and tight on the palate but nicely balanced acidity.

2005 Flaccianello delle Pieve by Tenuta Fontodi – Toscana. Closed nose, lacking fruit weight on palate, thin tannins.

2005 Colline Luchesi Tenuta di Valgiano – Toscana. Great smooth texture, fine length, flavour a little lacking.

2005 Sammarco by Castello dei Rampolla in Toscana. Sour cherries and fine tannins.

2005 Tignanello by Marchesi Antinori in Toscana. Nose like a good parmesan cheese, salty characters but great texture and very intriguing.

2006 Terodego Armilo by Bolognani. High alcohol, hot fruit, lacking length.

2003 Amarone della Valpolicella by Marion. Smoky bacon-like nose, textured and flavoured palate, lacking substantial structure to hold out much longer. Hot finish.

2004 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico by Allegrini. Nose a little more vegetal and capiscum-like flavours. Funnily enough that vegetal character is translated well onto the palate, mouth-coating flavours, well-weighted.

2004 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Vigneto Monte Sant’Urbano by Fratelli Speri. Has a stinkier nose, still quite vegetal and herbaceous, well-developed flavours and a firm finish. Balanced really, really well.

2006 Colli Piacentini Cabernet Sauvignon Luna Selvatica by La Tosa. Soft cheese nose, soft tannins, lack of flavour overall and mid-length palate.

1998 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo by Emidio Pepe. Smells just like the feet of a man gone camping and stinky gorgonzola, gritty tannins, firm finish and good palate weight.

2005 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Marina Cvetic by Masciarelli. Not as strong of a stinky cheese nose but still there and will probably develop into something much more appealing (?) with time. At least it has good weight and textural aspects.

2006 Montevetrano. Herbaceous but clean, tight and firm palate. Still a bit too young.

2006 Terra di Lavoro by Galardi. Like a Cabernet Sauvignon, similar vegetal characters, firm tannins with a long, persistent finish.

2004 Bruno Giacosa Barbaresco Asili Riserva. Lightly coloured, stinky cheesy nose, cooked cherry, strong powerful palate, delicate balance between the fruit with great acidity and firmness of tannins.

2004 Bruno Giacosa Barolo Falletto, Neive. Highly appealing nose, savoury on the palate, tight, quite acidic but evenly balanced with the flavour and weight.

2004 Tenute Cisa Asinari dei Marchesi di Gresy Barbaresco Gaiun. Nose like a Pinot Noir, sweeter fruits, newer world style, heavier fruit on palate but still with tight acidity and sourness on finish. Mid-weighted, needs more time in the bottle.

2004 Fratelli Cigliuti Barbaresco Vigne Erte. Savoury, delicious and has superb length.

2006 Barbera d’Asti Bricco della Bigotta by Braida. Quite a nice Barbera, a little lacing in flavour but plenty of acidity, maybe needs more time to open up…I got in early.

2004 Silvio Grasso Barolo Bricco Luciani. Firm tannins, chalky actually, perfumed nose a pleasant surprise, a little ordinary though overall.

2004 Barolo Enrivo VI by Montalletto – Cordero di Montezemolo. Weak flavours but good length and fine texture, so promising.

2004 Elio Grasso Barolo Ginestra Vigna Casa Mate’. Perfumed elegant nose, clean, vibrant acidity and really nice length. A delight!

2004 Vietti Barolo Lazzarito. Good concentration of fruit and drives through for a persistent finish. What a star.

2004 Aldo Conterno Barolo Romirasco. Nose like thistle, flavour quite thin, tart finish, acid acid acid.

2001 Giacomo Conterno Barolo Monfortino Riserva. Poor colour for a 2001, parmesan-cheese like nose (Brett.?), savoury and smoother tannins, salty-like sensation.

2004 Giacomo Conterno Barolo Cascina Francia. Musty and old nose but quite intriguing, savoury on palate but smooth, good length and totally delicious. I love how these wines continually surprise me.

2004 Giacomo Brezza e Figli Barolo Sarmassa. Still young, needs more time in bottle, tannins mouth-puckeringly harsh.

2007 Ca’ Viola Dolcetto d’Alba Barturot. Wish I’d tried more Dolcetto’s in my time here to really understand the variety better.

2004 Giancarlo Travaglini Gattinara Tre Vigne. Cheesy nose (what’s with all the cheese today people?!), firm tannins give a lovely mouthfeel they do not overpower.

2005 Gaja Langhe Nebbiolo Costa Russi. The Barbaresco-savoury nose but not sour on palate, fine tannins and elegant.

2004 Gaja Langhe Nebbiolo Sperss. The Barolo-firmer tannins, good fine length and acidity. Prefer the Barbaresco…

 

 

 

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La festa a Toscana!

8 Sep
2008

The winery crew congregated at 8am to take a large white bus all the way to Toscana for the two-day party that was going to celebrate the official opening of the La Spinetta Casanova winery. It took 3.5 hours to get there but that was compensated by stunning views (quick scenic snapshot of Portofino or Pisa for example) to pass the time.

The countryside here is beautiful and considering we’re not even in the Chianti DOC area I can only imagine how stunning it must be where the majority of wineries are.

The afternoon and evening were spent incredibly well-made food and drinking all Tuscan La Spinetta wines. They sure know how to through a party!

On the night of the second party just after midnight once the majority of guests had departed, Giorgio Rivetti, his brother Bruno and the head chef of the function decided to cook three huge T-bone steaks. The meat was cooked to absolute perfection, raw on the inside! Giorgio thinks I speak nice Italian too, which is good to hear.

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