Farm, Kitchen, Table: Emily WWOOFs Europe: Vendemmia!!

Lots has happened around here since the las time I posted, most importantly, the grape harvest (aka la vendemmia)!

First, a picture of the main Spannocchia compound from another hill:

Last Saturday, I went to an expo in Florence with Riccio, who is in charge of all of the salume they make here. They raise a local heritage breed of pigs here called Cinta Senese (literally, Siennese belt for the white stripe around their shoulders). They make prosciutto, salame, mortadella, lardo (cured pork fat), and many more products we don't often see in the U.S. We took samples of all of these and gave them out at the expo (called WineTown), which was in the Mercato Centrale in Florence.

And the awesome building:

When I make it back to Florence, I'll definitely be spending plenty of time here checking out all the awesome foodstuffs in the main market on the first floor of this building.

We also did the grape harvest this week, which was super interesting. We would go out into the vineyards armed with a pair of clippers, and we coiuld spend all day clipping bunches (called a grappola) off the vine, picking off any dried grapes (too much sugar!), and filling up box after box with grapes.

Then the box gets picked up by someone on the back of a tractor and hauled back to the cantina, which is in the main villa. Spannocchia makes three kinds of wine: white and red table wine, and vinsanto, a sweet dessert wine. For vinsanto, white grapes in relatively loose bunches are hung up to dry in the start of a three year process.

For white wine, the bunches are de-stemmed in a machine

Before the grapes are pressed in an old-fashioned hand press:

For red wine, the grapes do through the same de-stemming machine, but the skins are kept with the juice for a specific time in a large oak vat for the beginning of the fermentation process.

And after a few months or years, it shows up as wine on the terrace at 7 pm every night:

And on the dinner table just after:

While life has indeed been pretty good here at Spannocchia, I realize as I leave that it's not really the place I'll be missing. I recently realized that the next few months are going to be full of new fascinating people to whom I'll have to say goodbye almost instantly. The interns, volunteers, and even some of the guests here (notably intrepidmom.ca) have been great, and I'm sure it will a similar situation everywhere I go. I guess I can only be thankful for how small the modern world has become, and how easy it is to keep in touch with people.

So tomorrow I venture further south in Tuscany, where I'll stay for a month, of things go according to plan. Hopefully I'll catch all four necessary busses tomorrow! I leave you with some photos of the beautiful place I've been, including more grapes, some ruins, etc.