La vendemmia in Toscana

When I was a child, every September I spent a week with my my grandparents in Tuscany. They lived in a house of stone among the vineyards of the Chianti, a house old that in summer smelled of tomatoes and of firewood. September was the month of the harvest, and all the family worked together.

On the first day, we got up at six. While the sun rose slowly over the hills, my grandfather prepared the baskets and the shears. My grandmother us gave a slice of bread with oil and salt, because she said that not one could work on stomach empty. Then we went all to the vineyard.

The grape clusters of Sangiovese were dark and heavy. My father me had taught to cut them with care, without ruining the branches. The hands became purple in little time, and when we made a pause them I looked at laughing. The wasps us flew around around, but my grandfather said that if we stayed calm not us would they sting.

At half morning, we stopped in the shade of an olive tree. My aunt brought a bottle of water cool from the well and some slices of watermelon. While we ate, my grandfather told stories of when he was a young man, when the harvest lasted three weeks and the neighbors came to help.

Around the two, the tractor brought the baskets to the cellar. There inside, the air was cool and smelled of must. My grandfather checked the press old, which he had used for fifty years. He explained to me that the wine good not one makes in a hurry: it takes time and respect.

In the evening, tired but happy, we sat all around the table outside. My grandmother had prepared the ribollita, a soup thick of bread and vegetables, and my grandfather would open a bottle of the year before. Above us us, the sky was turning dark and a star white appeared above the cypresses. That was the Tuscany that I remember, slow and true.