Wine Time

When I first met Guido and he introduced me to his families method of making wine from the grapes in their small village vineyard, I was amazed on several accounts. The first thing that surprised me was the fact that red wine can be made from red and white grapes as in Guido's vineyard. The deep red colour comes from the tannin in the stalks, leaves and skin. Don't forget we are talking authentic country wine here, not something highly modernised in a large factory where they make an effort to remove most of the stalks. To make white wine those elements are all removed but the grapes used can be red as well as white.

The second thing that struck me was that the grapes were not washed before being crushed and put in the wine vat to ferment. Indeed, bits of mud, dead spiders and the odd wasp all went to add to that years vintage!

I loved the fact that we used the same equipment that had been used for generations. The stick for pummelling the grapes into soggy submission morning and night during the fermentation process had been carved by Guido's grandfather and used ever since.

It made me laugh that the whole process was carried out in the garage, which meant days of heady wine fumes emanating from there up into the rest of the house.

Once the wine is deemed to be ready, it is transferred from the Tino ( a huge wooden wine vat) to the Torchio (ancient hand press) and the filtered liquid is stored in equally ancient 54 litre demijohns which are kept in the cellar. They are inspected every now, and then and the oil at the top, that keeps the air from the wine replaced if needed, until the wine is ready to be bottled.

The cellar is a place only to be braved by those who really fancy a glass of wine. It has never been dusted. The floor  has never been tiled because that way any spillages seep into the dirt, as they should, to create the right ambiance. I am sure we have very happy spiders in there but surprisingly we never see any - maybe because we try not to disturb the decade old dust as much as possible. It is a PROPER cellar indeed.

Sadly, last year we abandoned our vineyard while in Bath running the guesthouse and we cannot make our own wine this autumn. Since we have managed to drink our way through what we had left from previous years (we have had a lot of guests over to help us!) we have had to resort to buying some local wine. We bought it from the local farmer's market this morning. I do not want to make anyone jealous here, but 5 litres of white and 5 of red came to the grand total of 12.50 Euros :) It has the added advantage of being rather good. It also means that we can indulge in both red and white wine, whereas when we made it ourselves it was always red in classic Chianti style.

Being good was something we could never guarantee with our own wine. Some years it was fantastic, others not so good and one year quite bad. One demijohn from that year was left without enough oil on top so and when we came to bottle it we found a kind of vinegar. My brother was staying with us at the time and he watched in horror as Guido tipped 54 litres of red down the outside drain. I think he was in shock. He kept repeating "Are you sure we cannot save it somehow?" He only recovered when we sat him down with a plate of pasta and a bottle of the good stuff!

Still, the bottling process is the same as it has always been, so I thought I would share a few photos with you so you can see how we do it.

First you pluck up courage to enter the cellar. You wisely make a lot of noise outside the door so that any resident insects know to hide themselves. Then you rinse out the equipment and start pouring wine into the bottles. This bit is easy. A few fragrant drops get spilt onto the dirt floor to make everything seem really authentic. The hard part comes next when you have to utilise the cantankerous corker. I dislike this tool intensely and it feels the same about me. You pop a cork in the top, slide the bottle onto the sprung pad below and pull firmly down on the handle, thus forcing the squeezed cork into the bottle's neck. Suffice it to say that I lost 3 corks to one particularly uncooperative bottle. Of course, when Guido does it things always go smoothly!!!

The last part in the process is the best of course. You take the bottle upstairs, after having rinsed and tidied up in the cellar to restore it to its former glory. You take a good glass, pour a liberal measure into it and sip. Very good! Anyone fancy a glass?