Grape harvest

We’ve set a date for the grape harvest – next weekend. It’s good timing really as we’ll have Darren’s dad here to help out, plus we are going to put our grapes together with another family’s – English friends (our first clients) just a few fields away who are also staying at their house at the moment.

Antonio tractor man is not only going to instruct us on the millennia old technique or picking and pressing grapes – he is also lend us all the necessary equipment. Where on earth would we be without him?

I was quite down about the grapes a few months ago, as I mentioned in a previous post. They didn’t seem to be growing well back then but now our vineyard is full of heavy bunches of inky purple, pearly grapes. It’s true that some bunches have shriveled up in parts but I don’t think that matters a great deal to make the quality of wine that we are going for.

I have no idea the quantity wine we will make. Part of me hopes we won’t get that much, what would we do with it? It’s not the type of wine that lasts a long time. We do have a subterranean wine cellar in our apartment in the historic centre of Matino, so if we do get a lot we could as well store it there.

I would really like to get some back to London where I’m sure we could easily find willing homes. The problem is getting it there. Antonio explained that wine is difficult to transport, unlike olive oil. He said that in order for it to travel well we would need to add a lot of preservatives which is off putting.

Our neighbours, Crisitna’s family, harvested their grapes today. I heard them chatting in their vines behind our house while I was putting out the washing this morning. When I asked her sister, Tina, how it went she complained that it wasn’t the vendemmia, or cutting of the grapes, that was difficult and time consuming, it was all the work that precedes it.

Antonio is pretty negative about the whole process, too. He said there is a local expression was that you needed to tend the vnes all year was a ‘uomo morto’, a dead man. I guess that means someone with nothing else to do, but I’m not 100% sure.