Un Giorno di Vino

On Sunday, Rita and I went for a walk/hike up through the vineyard terraced hills outside her back door. The first thing I noticed was that they plant things underneath the vines, so as not to waste any space...things like peas, potatoes, and lettuce. Often you'll find small groves of olive trees breaking up the vineyard, especially where the soil needs to be kept in place, where there is danger of erosion. Neither the vines nor olive trees are bearing fruit yet, or even in bloom for that matter, although I could see the buds which would become flowers on the grapevines, hanging in the same formation as a cluster of grapes. As we walked Rita pointed out other things- walnut, almond, and hazelnut trees, camomile, an herb her mother used to ask her to gather and then boil into a tea for migraines, cherry trees with colorful foil attached to their branches to drive the birds away, since this is cherry season and damaged fruit cannot be sold. Unlike the grapes-- they don't care about the grapes, at least as far as making wine is concerned, so it doesn't matter if they are damaged, by wildlife or otherwise. We walked by an agrico turismo...this happens where a family gets a lot of help from the government money-wise to grow their crops, and in return they run a restaurant where something like 60% of the food that is used must be from their own land.

For lunch on Sunday, Rita and I went back to Antoinette and Pippo's house, where a feast of quattro piatti awaited us...actually kind of small by Italian standards, where meals can consist of up to 7 courses. We had a small appetizer followed by asparagus risotto, then tongue (which I did not eat) and very tender beef served with peara (a sort of gravy, but it has breadcrumbs, this is a Verona region speciality), and finally ending with brownies Rita had made from an American mix and cake baked by Pippo's mother. Meanwhile, though it was only lunch, we were into the wines again. And from lunch, we drove to Monteforte D'Alpone who were having a white wine festival, and went on a tour of some of the regional cantine. We visited three different cantine, in fact. When you see the sign telling you you've arrived in Monteforte, it declares itself to be "Citta del vino." We drove through several of the small surrrounding towns on our tour, such as Pergola also proudly bearing the phrase "Citta del vino," Brognoligo which is where the Flory's own their farmhouse, Brognoligo being the "Citta del vino," and later that night I would go to Ronca, the little town where Rita was born and noticed as we drove that the sign said...yup, you guessed it, "Citta del vino." (The following day Rita would take me to Soave, to a cantina inside the castle where I'd been last time I visited them so I could pick up a particular wine I wanted, and I exclaimed over the fact that there was no sign for this town, Soave being a name known worldwide in the wine world. I guess they felt there was no need, everyone knows it's the city of wine.) My head became progressively fuzzy with wine as the afternoon proceeded, since each of the three wineries had several wines to taste. I did pour out whatever was left after I'd had a couple of sips, but it probably amounted to a glass of wine at each winery, plus however many glasses I'd had at lunch.

So by the time Rita and I got back to the farmhouse, did a quick change, and drove off to her birthtown of Ronca to pick up a childhood friend, I think I may have been spouting gibberish Italian. We first picked up Maria, who tried hard to speak slow and communicated with me, but then would slip into rapid fire Italian with Rita as they chattered away about people they used to and/or still did know. Funnily enough, Rita was getting mixed up, and would turn to me spouting Italian, realize from my blank stare that she needed to switch to English, only to turn back to Maria and tell her something in English. We soon arrived at the house of another Maria, who poured us each a glass of wine (oh boy!), and proceeded to gush over how much I look like Jenn, much fuller face, but I look so much like Jenn. Ma, non e grassa, non e grassa!! I actually could follow this conversation, and was a bit too befuddled by wine to have even had a chance to possibly be offended by the full face comment, but Maria quickly added that she didn't at all mean to suggest I was fat (grassa). It was very funny actually, and I'm sure you'll get a kick out of hearing that we look alike, Jenn.

From Maria's house, we walked- though it felt like a pilgrimmage actually- to a church way way up at the top of a hillside (read small mountain), on a grade so steep my butt was burning by the time we reached the top an hour later. As we walked, the two Marias and Rita gossiped, and we all stole cherries from roadside trees, staining our fingers with the ripe juice. At the top I felt like I was really part of a small Italian community, though I could not understand most of the Catholic service, and am not Catholic myself. There were two old men (well there were many old men, but these two in particular) who were obviously troublemakers and had been their whole lives, with red rimmed eyes from whatever they'd been drinking, and talked the entire time. One man called every woman he saw Marina, and the other suddenly turned to Rita at one point and said "I know I'm pretty big, I could stand to lose a little weight, how much do you think I weigh?" and so on. He wasn't actually fat either. One little kid ran around causing trouble the whole service, and the Father had to chase him off the step from which he was preaching at one point. Afterward there was a big barbeque, and I was handed a plate of polenta, Italian sausage, chicken and ribs from the grill. While we ate, an old aquaintance of Rita and her friends came and plopped down next to us, and chattered away the entire time. When she finally acknowledged my existence, she at first thought I was Rita's daughter (Non e la mia figlia, e l'amica della mia figlia e la figlia della mia amica) and then wanted to know how old I was. I announced "Ha venti nove anni," at which point I was pronounced old (e vecchia, e molta vecchia!) after being told I looked 19. There was coffee at the end of the barbeque, which I turned down, so I was told I'd have to have some grappa instead, and in spite of my pleas for no grappa, no no grappa, I ended up with small glass of it and was told it was homemade. Oh well, I couldn't be rude!

I learned some small town Italian gossip...the woman who had called me old was married to a man that Rita and her friends once drooled over. Rita said they all thought he was the handsomest man in the province. But then he got this woman pregnant, they got married and that was the end of that. Apparently though, at some point during their marriage, rumors started circulating about his girlfriend on the side, so this woman came home, grabbed a shotgun and pointed it at him, and that was the end of the girlfriend.

The second Maria I'd met was widowed really young, when her son was about 10. She'd been single for a long time, when she finally met a man and they got along really well and were planning to get married. Not long after, he was killed in a car accident. So Maria decided she won't get romantically involved with someone again because they'd wind up getting hurt...a sad story but it was told with laughter.

On our walk back down the mountain, a man was coming up the other way on a Vespa-type scooter, and after he'd passed the woman all burst out laughing- it was apparently the guy they all thought was so handsome once upon a time.

And finally on our drive back to Brognoligo, to top off my travel adventures with Rita, she drove so close to the wall of a very small stone tunnel, that not only did I shift toward the center of the car in my seat involuntarily, but the sideview mirror smacked into and scraped against the tunnel. Yikes!