witnessed. The estate manager and the winemaker mill about the vineyard, variously nodding and shaking their heads, touching, smelling the fruit, writing in notebooks, racing with the grapes into the lab to test the Brix. Would there be a harvest today, or would we wait for tomorrow and the further concentration of the fruit’s sugar? Here it’s another story: when the moon is waning and the grapes are fat and black, dusted in a thick white bloom and sundried of dew—the residual moisture of which might dilute the purity of the juice—the vinaiolo snaps off a bunch of grapes, rubs one or two on his shirt sleeve, tosses them into his mouth, chews, swallows, smiles and says, Vendemmiamo, Let’s pick.
The work is beginning, but I have to use the bathroom. Two women in pinafores and corrective shoes with the backs cut out flutter about my needs, show me the way, ask after my comfort. I’m thelast one to slip into the leafy avenues of the vines. My partners are a man called Antonio, thirtyish and swaggering, and another called Federico, seventyish, chivalrous as a count. When they see that I know how to use my secateurs, holding the curved handles easily in my fist, that I can burrow deep into the vines to clip and drop the fruit into my basket almost as rhythmically as do they, Holly Go-lightly is redeemed. “ Non è la tua prima vendemmia. Sei brava, signora. This is not your first harvest, my lady. You’re good.”
Less than two hours have passed and, drenched in sweat and rouged in grape juice, I am febrile, weak as a babe as I step out from the humid enclosure of the vines and into the light of the fiendish sun. It is the first collective rest of the morning and I can’t remember if I’ve ever been this tired. My legs feel just-foaled, not quite able to hold me as I try to stand. My body is seared but somehow exquisitely exalted and the all-absorbing sensation is not unlike a post-coital one. I look about for Fernando, who must be on the other side of the hill that separates the two fields. There he is, waving me toward him. Because they’re so beautiful, I can’t resist limping among the vines rather than along the sandy path beside them. Here and there among the green, succulent leaves, one or two are tarnished gold by the sun, crisped and beginning to curl. A symptom of autumn.
We go to join the rest who’ve collected about iceless tubs of mineral water set in the shade between two old oaks. There arebarrels of wine. There is no one actually swallowing the water, except the errant splashes of it that land in the mouth as they pour it over their heads and shoulders, chests, arms. They bathe in the water and drink the wine, and it all makes sense. I do what they do. There is a basketful of panini—thick cuts of bread stuffed with prosciutto or mortadella—and I eat one hungrily while Federico refills my tumbler with wine. I drain it like a true spawn of Enotria. I feel faint.
I manage to recall enough strength to return to the bending and clipping until I hear an accordian whooshing and voices singing. Only sun-inflamed I think I am and that the pleasant fit will pass until Antonio says, “ È ora di pranzo. It’s time for lunch.”
Merciful lunch and a serenade. I find Fernando, unfolded flat between the vines he was picking when lunch was announced. He’s laughing, saying he’ll never move again. We follow the others to the place under the same oaks, if a little deeper into their shade, where a long, narrow table is laid with a green and blue cloth and set with great, round loaves of bread, bowls of panzanella, wheels of pecorino and a whole finocchiona —the typical Tuscan salame, big around as a dinner plate and scented with wild fennel. There are flat baskets piled with crostini smeared with a paste of fegatini, chicken livers. Someone taps into another demijohn of wine and people stand in line with pitchers while some let the stuff fizz directly from the spout into their glasses. Sitting on the
The work is beginning, but I have to use the bathroom. Two women in pinafores and corrective shoes with the backs cut out flutter about my needs, show me the way, ask after my comfort. I’m thelast one to slip into the leafy avenues of the vines. My partners are a man called Antonio, thirtyish and swaggering, and another called Federico, seventyish, chivalrous as a count. When they see that I know how to use my secateurs, holding the curved handles easily in my fist, that I can burrow deep into the vines to clip and drop the fruit into my basket almost as rhythmically as do they, Holly Go-lightly is redeemed. “ Non è la tua prima vendemmia. Sei brava, signora. This is not your first harvest, my lady. You’re good.”
Less than two hours have passed and, drenched in sweat and rouged in grape juice, I am febrile, weak as a babe as I step out from the humid enclosure of the vines and into the light of the fiendish sun. It is the first collective rest of the morning and I can’t remember if I’ve ever been this tired. My legs feel just-foaled, not quite able to hold me as I try to stand. My body is seared but somehow exquisitely exalted and the all-absorbing sensation is not unlike a post-coital one. I look about for Fernando, who must be on the other side of the hill that separates the two fields. There he is, waving me toward him. Because they’re so beautiful, I can’t resist limping among the vines rather than along the sandy path beside them. Here and there among the green, succulent leaves, one or two are tarnished gold by the sun, crisped and beginning to curl. A symptom of autumn.
We go to join the rest who’ve collected about iceless tubs of mineral water set in the shade between two old oaks. There arebarrels of wine. There is no one actually swallowing the water, except the errant splashes of it that land in the mouth as they pour it over their heads and shoulders, chests, arms. They bathe in the water and drink the wine, and it all makes sense. I do what they do. There is a basketful of panini—thick cuts of bread stuffed with prosciutto or mortadella—and I eat one hungrily while Federico refills my tumbler with wine. I drain it like a true spawn of Enotria. I feel faint.
I manage to recall enough strength to return to the bending and clipping until I hear an accordian whooshing and voices singing. Only sun-inflamed I think I am and that the pleasant fit will pass until Antonio says, “ È ora di pranzo. It’s time for lunch.”
Merciful lunch and a serenade. I find Fernando, unfolded flat between the vines he was picking when lunch was announced. He’s laughing, saying he’ll never move again. We follow the others to the place under the same oaks, if a little deeper into their shade, where a long, narrow table is laid with a green and blue cloth and set with great, round loaves of bread, bowls of panzanella, wheels of pecorino and a whole finocchiona —the typical Tuscan salame, big around as a dinner plate and scented with wild fennel. There are flat baskets piled with crostini smeared with a paste of fegatini, chicken livers. Someone taps into another demijohn of wine and people stand in line with pitchers while some let the stuff fizz directly from the spout into their glasses. Sitting on the
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