Seasons in Basilicata (38 page)

Then along came another member of the cast—a very un-Western
looking young man in a baseball cap worn backward. In a high-pitched, whiny voice, he pointed out, with hysterically flailing gestures, that the sand smoother hadn't been adjusted right and had churned up dozens, actually hundreds, of fist-size rocks, which of course were anathema to both horse and rider when one was doing rodeo antics and cow-tying and bull-riding and the like. The young man was in a maniacal mood, hurling stones out of the stockade, which only seemed to unearth more stones, and bawling at the Pancho Villa guys to pull their ****** out of their ***** and start cleaning up the other rocks, which looked like at least a day's work to us.

It was now past seven, and there was still no sign of anyone turning up to watch the event. The sun was going down, so we gave up. We took one last loving look at the gloriously golden fangs of the Lucanian Dolomites, tried to decide precisely how we would lynch Massimo this time, and set off down those enervating and endless series of loops and bends again, playing Willie Nelson's “On the Road Again” at full blast to soothe our own frustrated cowboy spirits.

Vito's
Vendemmia

The mood changed dramatically the next day. I knew we'd struck gold when we asked Vito Montemurro about the October grape harvest, the traditional Basilicatan
vendemmia.
His gray eyes suddenly sparkled, and he lifted his heavy, seventy-five-year-old frame straighter in his favorite fireside chair. Even his head, huge and bone dense, which usually appeared too large for him to hold upright, rose in sprightly fashion.

Our conversation had been a little slow over the last half hour or so, partly due to the pasta and wine lunch (far too much of Vito's strong red wine) and partly because it was really time for a little afternoon siesta. But the mention of vines and grapes had lifted the sleepy stupor that filled the room even after a couple of those small but intensely strong Italian espresso coffees, liquid caffeine basically, with a taste that demanded attention and respect and
seemed to say with each sip, “You've never really experienced coffee before this!”

“A wonderful time!” Vito began, “Best time of the year. Everyone came to help. We all knew when the grapes were ready, not by taste or color—deep almost purple skins that feel hard with the pressure of the juices inside—but when you crush them in your palm and let the juices dribble off and then curl your fingers into your palm, if they stick it meant the sugar is ready. Then women do a big breakfast. Lots of coffee. Big glasses of grappa. Big slices of bread. Maybe eggs mixed with sliced peppers, sweet ones and hot ones. Just right to get you started.”

Vito paused and asked his wife, Laura, a dumpling-plump bundle of warm domesticity, for a glass of grappa. She gave him a reprimanding smile but poured one anyway. (Anne and I politely refused ours. The wine had been enough.) Then he was off again. “So, up we go to the vineyard on the hillside—Paolo, Nicolà, Giovanni, little Giuseppe, and all Carmela's children, all the family. Everyone carried a big straw
paniera
(basket) with a strong handle, and a pair of clipping shears. Paolo would drive his truck with huge
bigonce
(tubs) and then it would start. Everybody following the
paniere
and Carmela's children, running about carrying the full ones up to the
bigonce
and handing out empty ones.”

“Soon…” Vito paused and took a generous tipple of his 150-proof grappa, “…very soon there's juice everywhere—in the baskets, over your hands and clothes. And the smell of ripe fruit, ah! What a smell in the early morning. When the
bigonce
were full Paolo would drive them to the crushing barn and the vats, where Carmela and Laura would start crushing them with thick wooden poles, like big clubs. Paolo then took the empty
bigonce
back to the vineyard, and they'd get filled up again, and on and on until lunchtime. Everybody was exhausted so the women brought out a real
pranzo
(lunch) of pasta and prosciutto and
pancetta
and those big loaves of bread—really big loaves, a meter wide—you don't see anymore now, and of course lots of wine. Oh, it was all so good.”

Vito seemed to be lost in his own reverie. No one said anything.
He sipped the last of his grappa and began again: “Then, after lunch, a little siesta. Not too long though. And back to the vines for more grape-clipping and filling
paniere
and
bigonce
and crushing in the barn. And that wonderful smell! It was like the juice wanted to turn into wine right there. The air would make you drunk, and the sun was hot, and everybody was covered in juices and laughing, and the children throwing grapes and covering their faces and heads with juice and skins and…”

V
ITO

Vito paused again. The memory seemed too poignant for him to continue. His face and body sagged a little, and he said softly, almost in a whisper, “Such good, good times. The family all together. All the other families helping, and then that magnificent
cena
dinner at night, when we'd all washed and sat down to all those big
antipasti
plates filled with our own cheeses, artichokes, tomatoes, and big, fat sausages full of garlic and fennel and big bowls of
penne
with porcini
mushrooms, the best ones, and tiny, crunchy pieces of ham cooked in dark sugar with a sprinkling of thick, thirty-year-old
aceto balsamico tradizionale,
and
saltimbocca,
and big cauldrons of goat stew sometimes, and if we were lucky with our hunting,
cinghiale
steaks, or even, on very special occasions,
porchetta
(roast suckling pig) with lots of rosemary and garlic! Ah, such good, good times.”

Laura could see he was struggling to control his tears and she came and stood behind him, stroking the massive shoulders of her
capo della casa
(man of the house). She finished the story for him, quietly. “Yes, they were good times. But now our vineyards are all gone.” Then she laughed. “But at least we are still here and a lot of our family…and still many, many good friends.”

“And our old wines.” Vito added with a moist-eyed grin.

“Yes, still a few of those left in our
cantina,
” Laura said, giving her husband a huge hug.

At Last Giuliano's Own
Vendemmia

Slowly we were beginning to understand and celebrate the larger rhythms of life that gave structure and richness to each of the seasons there. After Vito's brief introduction to the subtleties of the grape harvest came one of the richest times of all for almost everyone in those remote hill villages: the great fall grape harvest and wine-making rituals. A real ancient, time-honored
vendemmia.

 

“O
NCE
I
USED TO
have my own
vigneto
[vineyard],” Giuliano said with a wry, slightly sad look on his face. “But now I don't. And normal, in the past, when I didn't 'ave my own vines, I got grapes out of Sicily. Real beautiful fruit. Montepulciano grapes. And I made my own wine. I always do that. You can't trust all that stuff in shops. It's best do it yourself and make your own
vino d'uva
(wine made entirely from grapes without commercial additives). Like most people around here, like my cousin Salvatore. I use his grapes now. Very nice. Mainly Sangiovese and a few Malvasia for
sweet wines. He's got vineyard near San Mauro Forte. And we're cutting tomorrow. Why don't you come along, help out, an' 'ave a good fun time with us?”

I had every intention of helping and having a good time. Truly I had. Giuliano said they'd be starting around nine o'clock and should go on until around lunchtime. “And then I guess we'll all have a nice
merenda
[picnic] in the vineyard,” I prompted. “With wine and cheeses and salamis and maybe even a large
pranzo
with roast chickens and boiled beef…”

“Oh, no, no. Sorry, David. None of that. This is small vineyard. We'll be finished by noon, so we all come back and have lunch at my 'ouse.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. Rosa's cooking, I thought, would be more than adequate consolation for the absence of a
pranzo
and even a
cena,
the huge, traditional, postpicking celebration dinner.

 

A
T AROUND TEN O'CLOCK
I was at San Mauro Forte, in the lush green foothills covered with olive orchards and vineyards, with my head spinning once again from all the hairpin curves of the drive from Aliano. I walked from the gateway to the vineyard, where Giuliano's truck was parked, and then through the high rows of vines, with their hundreds of fat, dew-moist
grappoli
(clusters) of deep-purple grapes, to where I heard voices.

“Hello,” I called out.

“Ah, David.
Buon giorno!
Come on. Have a glass of
vino
with us.”

“Great,” I said and emerged upon a timeless scene of half a dozen weary, juice-splattered grape pickers sitting in the shade under an arbor of apple and bay laurel trees, treating themselves to a tipple or two before launching again into the back-and neck-straining work, especially in vineyards with those
pergola
(arbor) arrangements of vines strung on wires between narrow wooden or stone pillars. Like this one.

“Not too much for me,” I said to Giuliano as he sloshed deep red wine from a label-less bottle into a chipped cup. “I've got work to do.”

Giuliano gave me one of his endearing, almost-toothless chor
tles. “Ah, well, y' see, David. There's not so much work to do because…we're finished!”

“Finished!? You said it would take until midday, and it's only…ten-fifteen!”

“Yes, azright. But you see my cousin here, Salvatore—Salvatore meet David, and David, this is his wife, Carmela. You see, this is their vineyard, and they invited some extra friends, so it got done much faster. So…” That oh-so-Italian “what's to be done” shrug once again.

“Well, I can't leave here without filling at least one
cassetta.
”

Giuliano winked at his cousin, who smiled and nodded and agreed to show me the subtle art of secateur use and where to cut the grape bunch stems and how to lay each cluster carefully in the
cassetta
(alas, not the romantic old-fashioned wicker
canestra
kind, but the more practical, modern, square, yellow-plastic box type). The trick was to do it gently, without bursting the grapes—so fat and juicy you could tell they were just dying to ferment themselves into their true earthly manifestation—bold, deep-red, country wine.

It was a short but interesting education. The
cassetta
was soon filled with its fifty-odd pounds of gorgeous-looking fruit, and I carried it to join the dozens of other brimming yellow boxes all ready to be taken off in Giuliano's truck, divided up between the families, and then crushed for the initial fermentation in their separate
cantine.
In Giuliano's case, his garage. Salvatore gave me a quick rundown on the productivity of his small, less-than-two-acre vineyard. “We should get around twenty-five
quintali
—each quintale is a hundred kilos—so that's around twenty-five hundred kilos, over five thousand pounds, with around sixty to seventy liters of wine for every
quintale.
So, what's that?”

“Around seventeen hundred liters or so,” I said. “I think.”

“
Si. Corretto.
Seventeen hundred. Maybe a little less. But enough to keep our families happy for another year, eh?”

“Was that your wine I just drank?” I asked.

“Why, of course,” Salvatore said, surprised by the idea that we would drink anything else while on his land.

“Then I think your family should be very happy!”

“Ah, yes,
bene, grazie.
You must have some bottles of my new wine when it's ready.”

I nodded an enthusiastic “yes” and decided not to tell him that I'd already placed my order for a couple dozen of Giuliano's brew, too.

 

L
ATER IN THE AFTERNOON
I was standing outside Giuliano's
cantina
with Rosa, Donato, their son-in-law, and Vito, their son, a strappingly large young man in his mid-twenties with Giuliano's big grin and Rosa's cautious eyes. Giuliano emerged from the
cantina
, proudly pushing out what looked like a enamel-plated, wheel-less wheelbarrow with a lawn mower–type engine attached to it and a screwdriver-mincing device that ran along the bottom of a V-shaped container. “My
macchina da macinare,
” he said proudly. “The best grape crusher in Accettura!”

“The only one in Accettura,” Rosa mumbled. “And it's a real noisy.”