Vineyards

Our first day of work in Italy, we woke up, stumbled towards the coffee and were relieved to not have to wear the layers and layers of clothing that New England demanded. The weather was beautiful and the grass was green. We assembled to get our assignments for the day and enjoyed watching the Italian farmers argue over where we were needed (or, rather, who got stuck with the Americans). Theo, Betsy and myself were chosen to work in the vineyards, so you can imagine our surprise when Angelo led us over to a woodpile and started setting sheets of paper on fire. Through much pointing, we understood that we were supposed to add kindling and then bigger logs until we had a smoking, flaming pile of coals. He then left (which we soon got used to as all the Italians seemed to wander away for no real reason and for varying lengths of time) and we stood around and wondered what we were supposed to do.

It turned out that we were charring the ends of posts for trellises for the grapes. Burned wood lasts longer and resists rot, so once Angelo sawed a point on a pole, we put it in the fire long enough to turn it black. With a pile of smoking, pointed logs and a tower in the background, it felt a lot like we were about to go into a medieval battle.

We then headed down the hill to the vineyard, which was about as picturesque and beautiful as you can imagine. When we got there in the morning it was covered in fog with the Tuscan hills in the background. We had a great time fixing the trellises and, through broken English and Italian, learning about grapes.