Vino Sfuso - The Video · Aug 28, 09:15 AM by James Martin
One of the things I like about Italy is the reasonable and quite drinkable wine you can get at a much lower price than in the US. Of course, well-aged, famous wines like Barolo and Brunello will set you back a bundle—yet fresh, crisp, local wines can be had for little, especially if you purchase them in the way many Italians do, as vini sfusi, wines you buy by bulk and take from the store in your own recycled bottles.
It’s easy. You enter the store advertising Vini Sfusi with your bottles, peruse the selection, noting the alcohol and the types of grapes used, and then, if possible, taste what you think you might want to buy. After than you just hand your bottles over and the rest is done by the shopkeeper. Prices in our part of Tuscany range from 1.20 to 2.50 Euros per liter.
You’ll notice that the higher alcohol wines are usually the most expensive. The alcohol level can be an indicator of quality. It’s not that people are looking for the highest alcohol for the best kick, it’s usually because the grapes are harvested a bit earlier than optimal in rural wine regions like ours if rain is on the horizon that might cause the grapes to rot before they’re picked. This can produce low sugar levels, and thus low alcohol and generally astringent wines which are best avoided. Too much alcohol, on the other hand, makes the wine “fat” and less attractive with food.
When we decided to try the vino sfuso in our region, we first brought our own bottles from wine we had purchased previously at the supermarket. When we found that the wine was quite good, especially for the price, we bought a spiffy 6-bottle holder for 3 Euros and 6, 1 liter re-sealable bottles for a Euro each. When they’re filled, we’re all set with at least a week’s worth of wine that won’t set us back more than 15 Euros for 6 liters of grape squeezings.
In the video below we offer a peek at some stores selling vino sfuso in Italy, the first in Piemonte, my favorite wine region in Italy, and the second in my neighborhood in La Lunigiana, a wine shop in the town of Terrarossa, near the castle.
Cantine Lunae in Ortonovo is one of our favorite places for bottled wine and also offers vino sfuso. There is also a new shop in Rometta that offers it.
Vino Sfuso - The Video originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Aug 28, 2011, © James Martin, 
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The Wine Dark Sea · Aug 11, 08:51 AM by James Martin
Lots of ink as well as millions of digital bits have been spilled over the controversial phrase that appears repeatedly in Homer in reference to the waters of the Mediterranean, in which Homer speaks of “The wine-dark sea.” People claim never to have seen it, so therefore Homer must have been smoking something…or he was just “one of those, you know, poets.”
However, I can assure you, Martha and I have sat placidly with a glass of red wine (for reference, you understand) on rickety chairs on our hotel terrace watching the ferries pour into the port of Bastia, Corsica, plying the wine-dark sea you see below.
You can’t deny the wine darkness of it. Sure, you can split grapes; perhaps it’s Pinot Noir, or Cabernet, or even the island’s own Patrimonio. But if what you see below is not (generically) wine-dark, well then, you need glasses.
(The full sized picture has some beautiful detail that doesn’t show here. I mean, if the Corsica Ferry people want a brochure shot, believe me, this is it. I can let the negative go for way less than a million. Really.)
If beautiful sunRISE pictures float your boat, see one from the same vantage point: Corsican Sunrise.
The Wine Dark Sea originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Aug 11, 2011, © James Martin,
View From Brolio Castle · Apr 15, 11:08 AM by James Martin
Imagine if you had a modest place in the rolling hills of Tuscany’s Chianti Classico region that had been in your family since 1141 and came with this view. (Yes, it would probably have been paid for by now I hear you say.) In any case, this is the view from Brolio Castle in Gaiole in Chianti.
While the castle remains in private hands, you can visit the gardens and the tower, in which there is a small museum of artifacts mostly from the time of the “Iron Baron” Bettino Ricasoli, who actually invented the formula for Chianti Wine.
Then, of course, you can head over to the tasting room and taste the current fruits of those labors. As someone who has taken a plethora of wine tours and been quite bored with some of them, I’d say a visit to the Castle, gardens and to the Baron Ricasoli tasting room is well worth your time. They’ve done a bang-up job on the hospitality side of the business, something often overlooked by wineries in Italy.
More later, including the details of a fine lunch at the Osteria del Castello.
The web page is very informative as well: Baron Ricasoli
View From Brolio Castle originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Apr 15, 2011, © James Martin,
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Puglia Wine Tales - Masseria Mita · Oct 5, 11:26 AM by James Martin
If you’re following our newsletter, and you should be (sign up below or see our newsletter page for more info) you’ll know that I’ve enjoyed my time at Masseria Mita, where Vincenzo Imperatrice quit his job to be close to the land and to put out the best of what the earth in Puglia would yield. He’s done quite well, I can report.
I particularly like the natural, sparkling Riesling he’s producing. It’s called “Bo?” He also has a 900 year old olive tree—which you see on the right—on his pristine property, a family masseria built in 1700 as a Trappist monastery. This single tree produces a ton of olives every two years or so. I mean it. He reports 4-500 kilos of olives come off it every picking season, and they pick each tree every two years. Do you know why there appear to be two “lobes” on the tree? Well, as Vincenzo explained, it’s important that the air get to pass through the center of the tree, so that mold doesn’t form in the wet season. You’ll see this all over Puglia.
Next year, if it all goes right, you’ll be able to picnic under the generous branches of this old fella. And if you’ve planned right, you’ll have purchased one of his wines to go with your picnic food.
Vincenzo produces very fine wines from his estate. You might want to see a short video we made while we were there. Believe me, the sparkler was a hit. With everyone who tasted it. Remember the name, “Bo?” and you’ll be fine.
Puglia Wine Tales - Masseria Mita originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Oct 05, 2010, © James Martin,
Water into Wine - Ancient Egyptian Solutions to Puglia's Water Problem · Oct 3, 12:14 AM by James Martin
They’re building a winery over at Tenuta del Barco that will produce around 800,000 bottles of fine Pugliese wine when it’s all up and running to capacity.
Puglia, you must understand, is a place in southern Italy where water is precious. You need a lot of water to make wine the modern, hygienic way, especially in the four months around harvest time—which is now. Add to these facts the restrictions set by law in Puglia; you can’t just start a winery and hook into the water supply and pump in as much as you want until the folks on the other side of town cry “uncle.” Industries like large scale wineries are forced to seek a real, long term solution.
What do you do? You can have enormous amounts of water delivered by trucks—which you’d still need to store—or, better yet, when you build your winery, you can collect the water off the rooftop and from the surface of the parking lot, then build cisterns to store it, like the Romans did. After some processing, you can use the collected water to clean the barrels, tanks and floors of the winery. The later solution is cheaper in the long run.
But what if you build some huge cisterns and it’s still not enough water to keep your winery operation going during the peak periods?
The answer is in the picture below. It is, in fact, an ancient Egyptian solution.
Stumped? Picture look like a weedy plot with sewer pipe sticking from it? Ah, you’ve missed the point.
It’s a water purification system that uses papyrus to clean the water. It allows the winery to re-use the water they’ve used for cleaning the tanks and the floors.
How does it work? Well, they’ve dug a big hole, lined it with industrial plastic sheeting, filled it with volcanic rock from Vesuvius to help filter the particulates, then added just enough soil to support the Papyrus plants you see on top. They pump in used water, it gets filtered, and the papyrus—well known even in antiquity for its ability to remove or transform all kinds if organic and inorganic contamination such like ammonium, nitrites, nitrates, and phosphates—does the rest of the purification. At the end of the chain is an inspection point where officials can take a test sample to determine adequate purity. After a positive result, the water is ready to be pumped back into the winery.
And those orange pipes? Well, each one is a sort of reverse periscope, allowing the crew to look below to see if there’s enough water in the system to keep the papyrus healthy enough for another round of processing.
Pure genius, eh? A solution driven by regulation which protects the public water supply while encouraging industries to solve the water resource problem through research they can afford to undertake. As I read about the wineries near my home in Lake County California emptying the wells of local residents during the harvest, then thumbing their collective noses at the people they’ve left high and very dry, I wonder why we Americans insist on letting corporations steal the basic elements of life as if they had the right to do so. And what’s to like about our idiotic, collective insistence that innovation is driven by a lack of restrictions or regulation; it’s not, real innovation is driven by identifying problems to solve in such a way as to make life better for all. What’s stopping us from wanting to live a better life?
(The Tenuta del Barco is a fabulous place to stay, a Masseria near the coast with its own private beach. The weather in September and October is nearly ideal, and this is grape harvest time. To find out more or to book a stay, see: Tenuta del Barco)
More Puglia: Lecce Weather & Historic Climate | Puglia Hotels | Puglia Vacation Rentals
Water into Wine - Ancient Egyptian Solutions to Puglia's Water Problem originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Oct 03, 2010, © James Martin,
Abruzzo Winery Wins Top Honors · Sep 9, 09:07 AM by James Martin
There, I’ve written a title that sounds journalistic. It probably won’t happen again.
German publisher Meininger has named Cantina Tollo the best cooperative winery in Europe. Cantina Tollo is in the Abruzzo.
The Abruzzo has traditionally been a place from which jugs of cheap Montepulciano d’Abruzzo came to American. Then there was yet another earthquake, then “The American” and now a cooperative winery that beats out the French, Germans, and the fine wines of Chianti and Piemonte. What next?
(Perhaps the judges were influenced by the picture in the upper left of the Cantina Tollo website. I am a pig too. I like it. A slender wine glass nestled between two of those “ample” breasts pornographers like to talk about will make me thirst any time. So sue me.)
What makes Cantina Tollo interesting is the cooperative part. In the US, the word “cooperative” is reviled, especially by the political right wing. “Nobody gonna drink no Communist wine in these states, ya hear!” Nope, we love big companies who hold sway over the population and own their senators outright and make cheap crap.
But listen up, talking about the cooperative:
The farmers own little land individually, partly because of the nature of the countryside, and partly due to family histories and external events. Every grower ekes out his existence on these small patches of ground, working all out. Here lies Cantina Tollo’s main strength : intensive care of the vineyard rests in the hands of those most concerned with the results. At the Cantina the day of the harvest is decided on area by area and grapes delivered to the Cantina. Here they are vetted load by load and sent on their way to their own pressing line. That’s how wine is made, the grapes are given the name of the wine before they are pressed, each lot being assigned its own cycle and process. The wine is subject to only physical processes as wine is a living, delicate substance that must be handled without artifice. ~ Vinitalia: Beyond the confines of the Abruzzo
Isn’t it romantic to think about “intensive care of the vineyard rests in the hands of those most concerned with the results” instead of gross profits?
Oddly, when I registered my Italian presence with the local constabulary last time in Fivizzano, the guy would only talk about the fame of Abruzzesi Earnest and Julio Gallo.
The grass is always greener…
Abruzzo Winery Wins Top Honors originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Sep 09, 2010, © James Martin,
Cinque Terre in Days Past · Sep 8, 02:57 PM by James Martin
I’ve recently had a nice twitter discussion about “the olden days” in the Cinque Terre, and it brought back memories. I was there then—thirty years ago. Nobody else who uses twitter seems to have been alive then.
(It’s amazing and somewhat disconcerting to realize that you’re old enough to have experiences nobody else has had. Pass the Geritol.)
The web doesn’t seem to have much about the history of the Cinque Terre. At least there’s nothing of any depth. It would be great fun to do an oral history of the place. You’d just pick out some grizzly old fart on a bench in Corniglia and start talking about the old days and record the whole deal. Takers?
There are some self-serving “Readers Digest Condensed Versions” of Cinque Terre history floating around the web. Rick Steves makes Cinque Terre History his own.
Translation of the piece if you don’t want to read it: A bunch of stuff happened and then I came on the scene and changed the place for good.*
I’ve read other things about the tiresome pirate attacks when the villages weren’t really connected well to the rest of Italy, and about the 20th century poverty, when folks laboring hard in the vineyards hoping for a cash crop to get them through the winter were forced to sell to buyers who had them over a barrel—as in, “you can sell cheap to me or you can let the stuff rot because nobody else is coming to your isolated and backwards village to drink this swill…”
You can just hear them spitting, can’t you?
In any case, the Cinque Terre I remember from 30 years ago used to be a very laid back place. I remember two distinct episodes. Once I was walking the trails in fall, and there were people out harvesting grapes. Men and women with grizzled and purple hands were cutting the bunches on the steep slopes and flinging them into big plastic baskets to be balanced upon the heads of eager and sturdy youths who’d take them down the trail into town.
I remember standing on the narrow dirt path, facing a line of youth laboring under these enormous loads and wondering what to do. I quickly pulled off the trail far enough to let them pass, wedging my ample form between vines and waiting. Nobody passed. I peeked out and saw the leader of the group motioning me to go ahead. I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t even figure out how the grapes didn’t fall off his head due to the fact he was motioning me forward with a free hand.
Eventually stumbling forward in my stupor over such excessive politeness I edged past the grinning troops, only later to encounter an old woman on the side of the trail with a rickety table upon which was arranged some seasonal fruit. She looked poor. I don’t remember how the poor looked that long ago, but something about her screamed poverty to me. So, given that I had no water or food, I decided to buy a couple of fruits—say they were apples, I don’t remember any more. I took a couple. She turns away. Finally, I ask “how much” in English and she answers something that seems like “whatever you think.”
Hmmm. So I get out 1000 lire, figuring that was enough. At the time it might have been about 75 cents, I dunno, but she looks at me like I’ve murdered her only child in front of her eyes, clutching at her chest like she is about to embark upon an unplanned trip to her maker. So I put out another 1000 lire.
Now she looks at me like I’ve just laid a greasy monkey wrench on her only-for-special-occasions lace tablecloth. I remember being afraid she was going to spit.
So I scrounge for another 1000 lire note. Bingo. I mean, it’s not like she’s smiling or anything, but she takes the money and I’m free to go. That’s like 4 bucks for two apples. Somehow, I think I got taken.
The odd thing is that I was probably the only person who’d had that experience that day. Hardly anyone went to the Cinque Terre. I may not even have known back then that it was named that; I had a rail pass and was just traveling up the coast, stopping when the stopping seemed good.
Things have changed, eh?
——
*You may also wish to read: Rick Steves, His Foreskin, and the Cinque Terre. It’s quite popular here.
Cinque Terre in Days Past originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Sep 08, 2010, © James Martin,
Cantine Lunae - Wine Travel in the Colli di Luni · Mar 31, 09:39 AM by James Martin
Italy’s wineries aren’t like those in the United States. Many wine estates are essentially working farms. Wine is normal for all, not just a means of placating the wealthy. Thus, many wineries are mere farmhouses.
So when you go looking for “wine tasting” you might be disappointed. Many estates require reservations or aren’t open to tasting at all.
One of the more Interesting places for tasting and purchase is Cantine Lunae in the Val di Magra in Ortonovo on Via Bozzi, 63. It’s part of the Colli di Luni wine region, or Luni hills. So, it is convenient if you’re visiting the Lunigiana, but it’s actually in Liguria. They also host quite a few events, as the winery is perfectly suited to it.
Lunae was the Roman name of the settlement near the mouth of the Magra which became rich from the shipping of Marble from nearby the marble quarries near today’s Massa and Carrara.
Cantine Lunae has a small museum of old wine and winery memorabilia to visit (it’s free, don’t worry). Above is a tableau of an old dining table at the museum.
The winery has a modern web site, although it annoyingly takes over your monitor full screen: Cantine Lunae
Cantine Lunae has a wide range of wines (and prices). As you see to the left, if you’re on a budget and happen to have have a big, clean bottle or two with you, you can buy Lunae’s vino sfuso by the liter for cheap.
Be sure to watch for “Cantine Aperte” to visit wineries hosting special events for wine tourists and locals. See: Cantine Aperte at Cantine Lunae to see last year’s happenings.
Essentials:
Cantine Lunae
Via Bozzi, 63
19034 Ortonovo
tel +39 0187 660187
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Need a Tuscany wine touring map? Perhaps these Tuscany Wine Guides can help.
Wander on over to the Wandering Italy Facebook page to discuss wineries, the Nero Palace collapse, and an opportunity to play Romeo and Juliet in Florence.
Cantine Lunae - Wine Travel in the Colli di Luni originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Mar 31, 2010, © James Martin,