Wine Part 1

Theo and I were stacking wood one day (like many days) when Angelo walked by and said he wanted help in the cantina. Little did we know it was going to be the coolest thing ever.

We started by aerating the wine to release the carbon dioxide that had built up during fermentation. There were lots of buckets and tubes and pumps involved but we eventually managed to transfer the wine from its giant tank that it had been sitting in.

Next, I climbed up on one of the scariest ladders in existence and used a hose to spray all the sediment out of the tank.

It was pretty wet, nasty work but also incredibly awesome.

We felt really, really lucky to get to be a part of all this!

Montalcino

Since there wasn't a ton of work to do at the farm, we spent an afternoon visiting the beautiful hilltop town of Montalcino.

Besides their epic view, epic fort and epic churches, they make some pretty serious wine. We went to an enoteca, or wine bar, and drank some brunellos and super tuscans. They're both excellent wines and it was quite the picturesque setting for a sunny, spring afternoon.

Wood Stacking

The whole point of our Tuscan February get-away was that there wasn't much to do on our farm that time of year. What we didn't know is that there's not much to do on most farms that time of year and going all the way to Italy doesn't necessarily solve that problem. We had a few great days working with the wine and in the vineyards but the bulk of the work was stacking wood. I can't (and don't want to) count the hours per week that we did this but as an illustrator I really really hurt my shoulder from overuse.

The Italians have a very strange way of managing their wood supply. They cut it down in their forests, chop it into lengths a bit more than a meter and then load it onto their tractor. They drive it back to the farm and dump it in huge piles which they leave uncovered and sitting in the mud so it all begins to rot. This said, they need this wood for their furnaces which supply all the heat and hot water for everybody living and staying on the farm.

They have us neatly stack the wood into long rows that are slightly raised. No tarps needed, apparently, despite the drenching rain all winter.

They mostly burn chestnut and mixed in with all this is corbezzolo. This wood is quite valuable as fuel for pizza ovens so we separate it out. First, we make massive piles of it. Then, we take wood from those piles and throw it over a wall.

Then, I imagine, the next round of volunteers (thankfully not us) stack it into yet another pile. Amidst all this, if it's too small they sell it, so we make a pile of that. Then we move that pile into a different pile in a different place.

Needless to say, when I have my own farm someday, I might improve upon this system.

Roman Road Are Better Than Ours

We spent a morning clearing trails down to an abandoned monastery. Betsy found what she was sure was an Etruscan wall and wanted very much to restore it with the rock she's holding.

We wanted to make the trail, which was a bit undefined in places, easy to see. Luckily there were pieces of marble all over so we made beautiful curbs for hikers to follow.

As we got to the bottom of the hill, however, we realized the Romans did it better. When the Pope was in Avignon, pilgrims from Rome headed north through Siena and the road they built was still a commonly used trail.

They also built this beautiful bridge over a small river.

Once we reached it, the monastery was beautiful and still fairly intact. Fun fact? Eating olive oil fell out of fashion for a while and the only reason the tradition remained at all was that nuns and monks kept pressing it to use for anointments.

The Creatures of Tuscany

Little did we know as we set out for a walk one day, that the Tuscan hills are covered in animals. We found two chingiale (wild boars):

Some deer/lama/whatevers:

A porcupine:

And a bird/duck/something:

I'm sure they were pretty vicious if provoked, so we hurried along as quick as possible.

Italian Cooking!

We had a cooking class with some of the cooks who work at Spannochia. It was, as you can see, a serious operation.

It was pretty fun to see how all the meals that we were eating were put together. When we had first come to Maggie's Farm in October, Christina (who was on this trip to Italy with us), had given us a two day cooking class so that we were all up to speed. Every rule that she told us about putting dry meat into a pan with hot oil, or not over crowding what we were cooking was thrown out the window.

We made stuffed chicken breasts, braised leeks, gnocchi and salami dolce. The salami dolce is a cute take on salami: they melt chocolate and crunch up cookies before mixing them together and forming it into a log. When you cut into it it looks just like a meat salami. Very delicious.

We had a lot of fun making gnocchi even though our pieces were constantly too big or too small.

It was really fun to spend a day in the kitchen and then eat all our wonderful food!

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.