La Vendemmia

We have been living surrounded by wine vines for the better part of 4 years. How is it that I am just know writing about my favorite time of year??? The cusp of Summer and Fall has historically been my favorite, but living in Tuscany, my love for this time of year has grown exponentially. The days are still sunny and bright, but there is a cool breeze and colder nights that affords welcome relief. The cicadas have quieted, but the birds still sing.

Then, the sound of tractors. Rumbling and clanking down the strade bianche with an accelerated roar of its engine. A parade of cars in tow crushing the white gravel on their way to the vines. The first sounds of la vendemmia or wine harvest echo through the fields.

Each year, I grab Elliot and we race out to catch the activity. We’ve spent our days walking (and okay, I’ll admit, talking to) the vines and watching them transform. This year, for 3 months during COVID lockdown, the vineyards provided daily respite. Our walks and adventures through them provided a freedom previously taken for granted. In many ways, the tethered vines held us together and kept us upright. The rows provided a continuity of life. As we would walk, they silently reminded us that, through past and present, there is a future. Nature presses forward and so should we.

So today, the familiar sound of a roaring engine and the banging trailer across the uneven white gravel road behind our village, had Elliot and I racing out again with me shouting his name in Italian dialect, “ANDIAMO, Ay-Lee-Ought!!!”. Slightly stunned and confused, he trails behind me off leash. For months, he’s been leashed because he is not to be trusted with the electrical fencing that surrounds the precious fruit for fear he will be zapped chasing a cat into the vineyard. La vendemmia not only marks the harvest, but Elliot’s return to being ‘libero’, free, off leash. We pick up the pace and meet the harvest parade as they pull up to the vineyard.

It’s hard to know who is more excited, Elliot or I. La vendemmia represents so much. On a ‘regular year’, it means the day the grapes start their journey to becoming wine. It indicates a change of seasons here in Chianti that Fall has officially arrived, despite what the calendar may say. It symbolizes the future of a new vintage complete with the mystery of its traits - what characteristics will it have? What will it yield? How will it taste? How will it compare to vintages past?

This year, however, it means something more. [But, first, allow me to interject a personal reveal…As a child I cried my eyes out on Christmas day for all the Christmas Trees that didn’t find ‘a home’. Same with pumpkins on Halloween. I’m clearly overly sensitive about some things]. This year, these vines, this fruit, this harvest, this day has a deep connection and meaning. For me anyway. And, maybe that’s why I’m finally writing about la vendemmia.

We’ve lived amongst the vines for years now. But this year, we have lived WITH them. Life around them was quieted in a stilled silence. For better or worse, gone were the preoccupations of clients, work, itineraries to track and busy schedules. Time was replaced with being with nature, really watching and listening, as it moved through its paces. Instead of racing past the vines snapping a picture of veraison, Elliot and I walked down the rows taking note of the vines’ progress - bud break, shoots, zip ties appearing to train the vines, glorious chartreuse green leaves spiraling open, darker green leaves creating one if the highest canopies I have seen, the berry clusters plumping into fruit, berries changing colors every day - each cluster monitored for change - during veraison. Until the day the vines were locked down, we watched, studied, and enjoyed them daily. We slowed down our pace to theirs. We learned from them and dare we say, we grew with them.

Today, and in the next few days around our village, a flurry of activity returns. Elliot is free of his leash, the vines are free of electrical fencing and, the fruit is free of the vine. We return to long walks in the vineyard to watch them return to dormancy, while the fruit of the vines’ labor (pun intended), the grapes become wine. One phase closes, another begins. The cusp of Summer to Fall.

Time to reflect on a season. In so many ways, it was a season that took so much away from us - sharing time with clients and colleagues, financial stability and upending life the world over. Living with the vines, however, we have realized numerous gains. We will take everything this year as given us, internalize it, harness it, craft it into something really great.

As we do every year, we chat with the workers as they clip, gather, and toss the grapes from their red buckets into the ‘grape trailer’ (our term, not official). With each batch of flying grapes, we silently say our goodbyes to them, and we wish them ‘buon viaggio’ into their next life phase as they are hauled off to crush at the winery. Elliot and I walk back home and wonder…What’s next for us? How will this year’s wine be? Don’t be surprised if, a year or two from now, when we all enjoy the wine of 2020; it’s one of the better vintages yet. And further, living with these vines this year, I’m pretty sure WE will become a great new vintage too.

[Also…I cried for the grapes left behind.]

Come experience harvest with us! Contact us today to plan a custom trip around Chianti Classico Harvest and learn all there is to know about our famous Tuscany wines.