Bella Tuscany (3 page)

When he leans over to move a pot, his glasses slip from his pocket and fall out on the floor. One lens breaks out of the frame but does not shatter. We all kneel in the fine clay dust to look for the tiny screw. After the owner and I give up, Ed continues to search until he spots it in the shadows. Twisting the screw with his little fingernail, he repairs the glasses. We thank the owner for his time and start to leave.

“Wait, how many did you want?” he asks.

“Oh, a few—just for flowers at our house.”

“Not for resale?”

“No. Three or four.”

“Well, you see, I'm not allowed, but three or four, what's the harm?” He gives us a price list and says to deduct forty percent. We select an urn to go with three along our wall and three large pots, all with garlands and swags. When we start to pay, we find that we don't have nearly enough money. He says there's a Bancomat in town so we head back toward the twisted streets, this time parking outside and walking in. Petroio means “large villa,” and the town is hardly larger than a huge castle. No one is about. We walk all over the tiny town and see no bank. The oldest church, San Giorgio, is closed tight. We spot a man walking his dog and he leads us to a doorway we wouldn't have found. No sign at all and the Bancomat is hidden away in a little closet opening.

Back we go to the shop, where the owner helps us pack the pots in the car. We take off and I fish the map from under the seat. “We're near the Abbadia a Sicille, supposed to be a refuge and inn for pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land. Embedded in the wall is a Maltese Cross and an emblem of the Knights Templar—”

“Are we avoiding the wall?” Ed interrupts. No need to answer.

Primo's men are loading the Ape (pronounced AH-pay, which means “bee,” and is a useful small vehicle, something like a covered scooter with a pick-up bed behind it). They've neatly stacked the fallen stones along with bags of cement. A new bottom row already is in place, boulders with cuneal openings for water to escape. Up top, we find they've dug trenches and laid pipes from the hillside to the terrace edge. I point my two forefingers to the ground. “Let it not happen here. Again.” Such a useful gesture.

The streams now have channels, creating several waterfalls over the edge. We squish up to our ankles.
“Tutto bagnato,”
Primo says, all wet. Everyone passing stops to view the disaster. A woman tells us that many years ago a small child fell in a well here and drowned, that her cries can be heard at night in the house. This news is unsettling. “That's why the house was abandoned for thirty years. I was afraid to walk by at night when I was a girl.”

“We've never heard cries,” Ed tells her. I wish she hadn't told us. Now when I'm alone, I'm sure I'll be listening.

When she walks on, Primo says, “All old houses are haunted.” He shrugs, turns out both hands. “Spooks do nothing. Water is what to worry about.”

In the night I wake up but all's quiet except for the little Niagaras plummeting into the ditch.

Sfuso: Loose Wine

GITA
,
ONE OF MY FAVORITE WORDS, A LITTLE
trip. This morning, I expected Ed to head to the olive terraces with his hoe but instead, he looked up from Burton Anderson's
The Wine Atlas of Italy,
which he often reads at breakfast, and said, “Let's go to Montepulciano. Our wine supply is getting low.”

“Great. I want to go to the garden center there to buy plumbago to plant under the hazelnut tree. And we can pick up fresh ricotta at a farm.”

Isn't this what we came to Italy for? Sometimes, in the long restoration, I've thought that I came to Italy only to rip ivy from walls and refinish floors. But now that the main projects are over, the house is—well, not finished, but at least looking more like home.

We will restock our
sfuso,
loose wine. Many vineyards produce a house wine for themselves, their friends, and local customers. Most Tuscans don't drink bottled wine on an everyday basis; either they make their own, they know someone who
does, or they buy
sfuso.
In preparation, Ed washes out our enormous green glass demijohn and also our shiny, stainless steel container with a red spigot, an innovation that threatens to replace the traditional demijohns.

To protect wine from air after the demijohn is filled, we learned to pour a splash of olive oil on top, forming a seal, then jam in a fist-sized cork. The new canister has a flat lid which floats on top of the wine. A drizzle of neutral oil is poured around the tiny space between the lid and the side of the canister. A second tight lid then goes on top. As you open the spigot at the bottom and pour your wine into a pitcher, the lid and sealing oil lower too, keeping the seal intact.

When families have seven or eight demijohns, they usually store them in a special cool room, a
cantina,
then uncork each demijohn as they need wine. We've done that, hoisted the demijohn to a table and tipped it, filling old wine bottles through a funnel, then sealed our twenty or so bottles with olive oil. We became adept at tossing off the oil with a jerk when we opened a bottle. But always a few drops floated on the surface. Already, I've consigned two demijohns to decorative functions in corners of rooms. We found our three abandoned by the recycle bin; someone else had given up. But how could they throw the bottles away? I love the curvaceous, globular, pregnant shape and the green glass with bubbles trapped inside. We scrubbed them with bottle brushes made for the job and bought new corks. “Do we really want to use the demijohn again?” I venture.

“You're right. But don't tell the men.” He means, of course, Anselmo, Beppe, and Francesco, who scorn any change regarding olives or wine. We load two twenty-liter plastic jugs into the trunk—handy for transporting, but we must transfer the wine into the canister as soon as we come home. A plastic taste can seep quickly into wine.

 

It's great being a tourist. Guidebook and camera in my bag, a bottle of water in the car, the map spread out on my knees—what could be finer?

The road from Cortona to Montepulciano, one of my favorites, levels from terraced olive groves to luxive, undulating hills, brilliant with golden wheels of wheat in summer, and now in spring, bright green with cover crops and long grasses. I can almost see the July fields in bloom with
girasoli,
giant sunflowers, the hallelujah chorus of crops. Today, lambs are out. The new ones look whiffey on their faltering legs, while those just older cavort about the mothers' udders. This is the sweetest countryside I know. Only occasional blasts of pig barn odors remind me that this is not paradise. In shadowed dips of the hills, shaggy flocks sleep in big white clumps. Wheat fields, fruit orchards, and olives, perfectly cared for inch by inch—all gradually give way to the vineyards of Vino Nobile of Montepulciano.

Chianti, Brunello, and Vino Nobile, the three greatest wines of Tuscany, share a characteristic full-bodied, essential grape taste. Beyond that, Tuscans can discuss endless shades of difference far into the night. Since production of Vino Nobile began in the 1300s, they've had a long time to get it just right. The name of the Tuscan grape, Sangiovese, suggests much older wine production; the etymology is from
sanguis,
Latin for “blood,” and from Jove—blood of Jove. The local strain of Sangiovese is called “Prugnolo Gentile,” nice little plums.

We turn into a long alley of lofty cypresses lining a
strada bianca,
a white road tunneling under the trees. We drive through bolts of pale green light angling down through gaps between trees. Ed only nods when I remember a line from Octavio Paz, “Light is time thinking about itself.” It seems true to me on one level and not on another. The Avignonesi vineyards surround one of those sublime properties that set me to dreaming of living another life in an earlier time. The villa, the family chapel, the noble outbuildings—I'm in a heavy linen dress in 1780, sweeping across the courtyard, a white pitcher and a ring of iron keys in my hands. Whether I'm the contessa of this
fattoria
or the maid, I don't know but I have a flash of my steps years ago, the outline of my shadow on the stones.

Avignonesi's winemaker, Paolo Trappolini, a startlingly good-looking man who looks like a Raphael portrait of himself, tells us about the experiments at the vineyard. “I've been searching out almost-extinct rootstock around Tuscany and saving old strains.” We walk out in the vineyard and he shows us new bushy vines planted in the
“settonce”
pattern, a Latin way of placing one vine in the center of a hexagon of other plants. He points uphill at a spiraling planting pattern,
la vigna tonda,
the round vineyard. “This also is an experiment in using different densities to see the effect on wine quantity and quality.” He shows us the aging rooms, some of which are covered in thick, gray mold, and the
vin santo
room, deliriously perfumed with smoky, woody scents.

Avignonesi makes many fine wines, which can be tasted here or in their Palazzo Avignonesi in the center of Montepulciano. Ed is especially interested in their
vin santo,
the smooth, nutty wine sipped with
biscotti
after dinner. In homes, at all hours, we've been offered
vin santo
, have had
vin santo
forced on us. It's ready, in every cupboard, and you must try it because it's homemade. Avignonesi's is special, one of Italy's finest. We are able to buy only one bottle; their limited quantity has been sold. Someone has given us two venerable bottles of
vin santo,
a 1953 and a 1962 Ricasoli, bought in New York and now transported back to their place of origin. Anselmo also has given us a bottle of his own. With the precious Avignonesi, we'll invite friends for a tasting after a big feast one summer night.

Next is Tenuta Trerose. Most of their vineyards are planted the usual way, in staked rows, but a large field is planted as a low arbor, the Etruscan style of planting. The offices are in a modern building behind a villa in a cypress grove. A young man, surprised to see visitors, gives us a price list and shows us their wines in a conference room. Ed, having consulted the most recent
Vini d'Italia,
his trusty yearly guide, selects a case of Salterio Chardonnay and a mixed case of reds. We follow the man out onto a catwalk overlooking a warehouse of stainless steel tanks, some oak barrels, and cases and cases of wine. He shouts, and a woman appears from behind boxes. She starts to put together our cases, leaping, as gracefully as a lynx, over and on stacks of boxes.

Inconspicuous yellow signs point the way to vineyards—Fassato, Massimo Romeo, Villa S. Anna (produced by women), Fattoria del Cerro, Terre di Bindella, Podere Il Macchione, Valdipiatta. We know the names, having popped many a cork from their heroic wines. We're headed to Poliziano for our
sfuso.
Ed waves to someone in a field, who meets us in their warehouse. “The best
sfuso
in a decade,” he tells us, as he sets out two glasses on a stack of wine boxes. Even at 11
A.M.
, we're pleased by the hearty red color and the light hint of strawberries in the taste and, what, oh, almost a fragrance of mimosa. We've found our house wine. He fills our jugs from a hose attached to an enormous vat. By law he must seal the jugs and dutifully record our names in his computer. As he pulls up Ed's name, he sees we've been here before. “Americans like our wine, no?” he asks, so we answer yes, for all Americans. Ed wedges the tanks behind the seat, hoping they won't leak as we negotiate the unpaved roads.

 

The anguine town of Montepulciano stretches and winds as though it were following a river but it climbs a long ridge instead. Henry James's impression, a view caught between arcades, was of “some big battered, blistered, overladen, over-masted ship, swimming in a violet sea.” Tuscan hilltowns often give one the sense of an immense ship sailing above a plain.

On the roof across from Sant'Agostino, an iron
pulcinella
has hit the clock with his hammer to mark all the hours since the 1600s. I stop to buy candles in a small shop. There, among the potholders, key rings, mats, and corkscrews, I find a dim opening into an Etruscan tomb! “Oh yes,” the owner says as he flicks on spotlights, “many store owners find these surprises when they renovate.” He leads us over to a glass-covered opening in the front of the shop and points. We look down into a deep cistern hollowed from stone. He shrugs. “The roof drained here so they always had water.”

“When?” Ed asks.

The owner lights a cigarette and blows smoke against the window. “The middle ages, possibly earlier.” We're always amazed by how casually Italians accept their coexistence with such remains of the past.

The street up to the
centro storico,
historic center, jogs off the main shopping street so that the
piazza
is somewhat removed from the bustle of daily shopping. The unfinished front of the massive church adds to the abandoned feeling. A sheepdog on the steps is the most alert being in the
piazza
. We don't go in this time, but, walking by, I imagine inside the polyptych altarpiece by Taddeo di Bartolo, where Mary is dying in one panel, then surrounded by lovely angels while being swooped into heaven, with apostles weeping down on earth. White plastic
caffè
chairs lean onto their tables in one corner of the
piazza
. We have the whole grand, majestic square to ourselves. We look down into the bottomless well, presided over by two stone lions and two griffins. It must have been a pleasure to shoulder your jug and go to the town well to meet your friends and haul up pure water.

In the fine
palazzi,
several vineyards have tasting rooms. Inside Poliziano's, there's a portrait of the Renaissance poet for whom this distinguished vineyard is named. The woman who pours liberal tastes highly recommends two of their
reserve
wines and she is right. Three of their wines are named for poems of Poliziano's: Le Stanze, Ambrae, and Elegia. Stanzas and Elegy we understand but what does the white wine's name,
“ambrae,”
mean? She pauses then shakes her head. Finally she waves her hands, smiles,
“Solo ambrae, ambrae.”
She gestures everywhere. Ambiance is my best guess. We buy several
reserve
and the poet's wines.

As a poet, Poliziano made it big in Montepulciano. A bar on the main street is named for him, too, though the decor is strictly nineteenth century instead of the poet's period. Beyond the curved marble bar are two rooms of dark wood and William Morris–style wallpaper with matching upholstered banquettes and proper little round tables, a Victorian tearoom, Italian style. Both rooms open onto the view, framed by flower-filled iron balconies. We have a sandwich and coffee then hurry to the car. The day is slipping away. I stop for a quick look at a church interior I remember, the Chiesa del Gesù, with its small
trompe l'oeil
dome painted to look like an encircling stair rail around another dome. The perspective only makes sense to the eye from the center of the front entrance. From any other, it goes wonky.

The flower nursery takes its name from the massive church, San Biagio, which we skirt quickly in our rush to buy the plumbago before closing. San Biagio is one of my favorite buildings in the world, for its position at the end of a cypress-lined drive, and for its golden stones, which radiate in afternoon sun, casting a soft flush on the faces of those looking up at the austere planes of the building. If you sit on one of the ledges around the base, the light pours over you, while also seeming to seep into your back from the walls. A walk around the building, inside the warm halo surrounding it, gives me a sense of well-being. As we wind around San Biagio on the road going down, we see the church from changing angles.

We find an apricot bougainvillea to replace one that froze, two plumbagos promising soft blue clusters of bloom under the trees, and a new rose, Pierre de Ronsard, a climber for a stone wall. A French poet to join Poliziano in the car.

“Oh, no.” Ed hits his fist on the steering wheel.

“What?”

“We forgot to stop for ricotta.” The ricotta farms are near Pienza, miles down the road.

The mingled scents of plants and sloshing wine wash through the car, along with the deep grassy smell of spring rain which has begun to fall as we head toward Cortona.

For dinner tonight, we've stopped at the
rosticceria
and picked up some divine
gnocchi
made from semolina flour. I've made a salad. Ed brings out the Ambrae from Montepulciano and holds it up to the light.
Ambrae
is not in my dictionary. It must be Latin, possibly for amber. I take a sip—maybe it
is
ambiance, the way dew on lilacs and oak leaves might taste.
Wine is light, held together by water
. I wish I'd said that, but Galileo did.