All those long, hot, lazy days, lounging in the hammock, while the scirocco caresses a sunburned leg. Falling asleep in the middle of the day, because I can. And because, in the next few months, I’ll be working overtime. There’s the harvest and the winemaking and then I must get on the road, to America, to Sweden, to China, to India - to sell the wine. Wine dinners, wine tastings, hotel rooms, airplanes, these will come soon. But not before the harvest.
Such is the life of the modern winemaker in Italy. Gone are the preparations for the winter, putting up the tomatoes and the fruit preserves, hunting for one more boar or maybe something bigger, to put away meat for the winter. Now we must hunt for our customers, as the world for selling wine has become ever so much more competitive and cutthroat.
But for one more evening, let me open another bottle of rosé, let the breeze come up from the south or the north, or wherever it is coming from; let me linger over this bottle of wine while the sun sets. One last time.
Summer is ending. Harvest begins. So it goes. And so we go with it. As always.
written and photographed by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy
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