Winemaking in Abruzzo

Perhaps my favorite experience on my second visit to Italy was being a witness to the winemaking ritual. Small batch, local grapes grown on my family's vineyard. The evening prior to this act of divine agricultural magic, I was conversing with my cousin, Nicola, whose English is no better than my Italian. He told me of his plans to make wine the next morning, and I think was surprised that I asked to participate. Perhaps to an Italian native, this is no special occasion, because in Abruzzo, it appears, everyone makes their own wine. If you're American however, you can understand why I was so intrigued and eager to break out the camera.

On winemaking day, it was a gorgeous sunny morning on the coast of the Adriatic, where my DiRisio family's B&B is located. Il Tremolar della Marina (translation = The Trembling of the Navy) sits up on a hill facing the sea, and behind it an ascending maze of grapes of many varieties. Nicola and his two friends would be making white wine that day; the name of the specific grape escapes me now (it could have been Trebbiano d'Abruzzo), but frankly, that's not important. What transpired in the form of camaraderie and tradition is the real story. Below is a pic looking down on the B&B, and on the far right, a high plateau and the beginning of the Punta Aderci Reserve, pics of which I'll post in another entry.

Some background first: Nicola owns three hectares of vineyards, the equivalent of about 7.5 acres. This was originally about 15 acres of land, passed down by his father and split equally between Nicola and his sister Matilda (across the road, she grows olives on her property). From what I understand, this property has been in the family since the 50's, but not always a B&B.

Nicola and the family dog Mia take me for a walk atop the property line to show me the spectacular vista and pick some selvaggio frutti di bosco (wild blackberries). He tells me in the picture below, here, someday, you will build a house. He and I have come a long way from our first visit last year, at which time he was very skeptical of our relation to each other (I am a Tiberio and he is a DiRisio). We worked through all the confusion and had our breakthrough finally, but this year, he has shown me a gentler, loving side of him. Much to my delight, we are friends now.

 We descend into a little gully where the berries are hiding...

Back to winemaking: One of Nicola's friends (I regret to have forgotten his name) arrives in a pickup truck, its bed filled with crates of grapes that had been stored in refrigeration. I'm not sure who actually hand-picks the grapes; this may be farmed out to the local co-op. Side note: Adjacent to the B&B is the Casalbordino Vino DOC, a large agricultural co-op facility that processes grapes for local growers. There's a constant buzz of tractors (think John Deere) pulling trailers FILLED with grapes coming in and out of the facility. You can smell fermenting grapes in the air when the wind blows just right. Nicola thinks the DOC is an eye-sore, understandably, as huge steel silos, pipes, and storage buildings block the southern view of the coast.

Another friend arrives, his name also Nicola, a colorful character indeed and the source of much entertainment. My father and I introduce ourselves to him, as the other Nicola has disappeared momentarily. He fervently speaks to us in Italian, expressing his frustration that there isn't "una lingua del mondo"... one language of the world. We smile, and agree, chuckling. He throws his hands in the air.

The three men reconvene and start pulling together the necessary apparatus: the "grinder" we'll call it, buckets, hoses, and of course, the star of the show, the press. The grinder sits on top of a huge bucket, and as it grinds the grapes, spits out the vines, leaves, and such. They begin dumping crates of grapes into the grinder, at a pace slow enough to allow the machine to do its work.

  

Here you can see the vines being discarded into a crate

Ground grapes 

 Hand-sifting through some of the grapes

By the time all the crates have been dumped in, the big bucket is just about full. This seems like a good time to take a break and eat some pizza pomodoro, accompanied, of course, by some of Nicola's white wine from last year. No arguments here.

The winemaking shop, starring the press

Friend Nicola serenading me a la Frank Sinatra

After Nicola sings a few of his favorite Frank Sinatra and Glenn Miller songs, it's back to work. They remove the grinder, and begin transferring the ground grapes into the press by small buckets. 

And the juice starts flowing..... from here they fill the small buckets with the run-off juice and transfer it to a large steel vat.

When the flow of juice naturally slows, they begin prepping the press to squeeze the remaining flesh and get every drop possible out of the "uva" (grapes). Then the ratcheting begins, and becomes exceedingly difficult as the press gets closer to the bottom of the barrel. They even let us give it a whirl.

 Cousin Nicola DiRisio

They continue to transfer the buckets of juice to the steel vat until finally, the uva surrender. The flow of juice slows to an unceremonious trickle. I take a moment of silence for the grapes who have given their lives at the hands of the tre signori. 

 

And finally, some pics of prior years' hard work....