Oltretorrente

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Paderna is almost in Liguria. At lunch the influence is obvious, the minestrone is thick and doused with pesto. Chiara would prefer I arrive on a different day. But Monday is my only option. I realize that embarrassment is the origin of her preference. Their new rented cellar is a big anonymous concrete structure just outside of Paderna, with busted windows and no amenities for winemaking. Cleaning (necessary after almost every step) takes forever. She thinks I will mind watching them clean up the mess. The floor isn’t slanted to allow liquids to flow to a drain, there are no grated drains of the type you see in almost every other cellar in the world.

Still, it’s an improvement on their former cramped space, now used exclusively for ageing wine. Judging from the 2014’s (the first wines assembled in the cellar) the facility is not holding Oltretorrente back: the wines are brilliant, in both senses. Tasted at lunch and then again at dinner with the WOOFers (see below) Cortese, Timorasso and Rosso showed cleaner, brighter, fresher, better than ever before. It was a troublesome vintage that played to the personal tastes of Chiara and Michele, yielding lighter wines with lower levels of alcohol.

Now I’ve eaten at every restaurant in Paderna. There are two. The second may have opened since my last visit. It is willfully contrary: the first place focuses on fish, the new one meat. Their wine lists both mine heavily the 30 estates of the colli Tortonesi, with no overlap. It’s silly, and frustrating to Chiara.

It is hard to overstate how much I like this person. Chiara has an incredible smile, she tells interesting stories (and is really funny) she frets about the present-and-future of this little start-up winery in a way that I live her pain and stress. They are replanting 1,000 Barbera vines a year in their fields, planta that were dead before Chiara and Michele arrived. They fight to get Italian restauranteurs to pay for the wine they receive. The attitude of the proprietors (particularly of the better places) being, “there is someone else in line behind you, pester me and I’ll shove you out of the way.” They borrowed a little money from parents to start the place, and I think a grandparent takes care of their two small children (aged 5 and 3) during harvest and other stressful times, but in effect Oltretorrente have done something exceptional: struck out on their own, started something new. 

Walking through fields to see new plantings of Timorasso (and lamenting the ever-present creep of flavescencia) I feel incredibly connected to Chiara. I share her dream. It is essential to me that it succeed. Have you ever met a person that dragged your jaded existentially-wandering self to the very moment you are inhabiting, that gave off such a wallop of real vibes that you were forced to be in the present? She does that. Intensity. Honesty. She’s real, and you feel it.  

I see Chiara’s struggle, and for some reason really feel it. These people are talented like few others. They will make it. Michele has been awake for three days, watching the crush of Cortese. He fell asleep in a lawn chair before lunch, as French helper Rafa (another great, positive guy) cleaned out orange cassette.

Wine and peace.

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September 12, 2015

It was hard to leave La Casaccia. The people are so wonderful: happy, nerdy, full of positive energy and locally grown vegetables. Federico, Alejandro, Margherita and I went for a run through the hills around Cella Monte this morning. Alejandro, who jokes he runs as much per year as I run per week, and Margherita, who is more of a yogi, peeled off after seven steep kilometers. Federico, who is a former cross country runner, and I continued for 13. It felt good, and tough. I was buzzing from the exercise for most of the day.

But I had to go. We looked at early stages of fermentation in tanks of Grignolino and Chardonnay before I left. The Chardonnay was picked first and tasted of wine, it bubbled away happily and will reach the finish line in three or four days. The Grignolino is still mostly must, picked two-three days ago but already in motion thanks to the vintage’s awesome yeast. La Casaccia pumps over their wines every four hours to keep dry caps of grapes from forming, and makes all the wine in large cool (roughly 17-22C) stainless steel vessels.

The 2015 metodo classico bubbly (50% Chardonnay / 50% Pinot Noir) already tastes great, like grower Champagne. Ready for sale in five years maybe!

I knew Carussin would be different. The people are different. Incredibly warm, open-minded, a lot more crunchy. The place is sprawling, a wonderland of WOOFers and wild vegetation, art and animals of all shapes. Donkeys, sheep, dogs. In an hour I met Italian friends, a group of visitors from Japan, a long-term cellar helper from Japan, a very cool woman from Montreal who has been helping at Carussin for a month with a goal of working in the wine trade in Italy, and a French woman who has recently been living in Torino. Carussin’s second house, where the workers reside, is like an all-ages younger-than-me college dorm room for people obsessed with biodynamic farming.

Luca (the oldest son or Bruna and Luigi, and the brewer) is here. Today the bottling line is running for 2014 Asinoi. Bruna (who runs the show) said they picked beautiful Moscato grapes yesterday. It seems to be a happy harvest for everyone in Piemonte. I think work ended in a frenzy on Friday at many estates because rain is predicted on Monday.

September 13, 2015

Real rain is falling. Last night Luigi (the real farmer) from Carussin looked approvingly on sprinkles and said they would freshen the grapes without preventing harvest on Monday. I wonder how he feels about this mess. From what I’ve heard rain was expected tomorrow.

Rain on a Sunday. Maybe it’s perfect. It certainly creates some scheduling questions for me. Nobody is picking fruit in the wake of this deluge. I awoke to the sound of wooden shutters banging against the house, and thunder. First groggy reasoning posited the noise came from upstairs neighbors: the WOOFers. Two minutes later I realized it was 8am on a Sunday, with no scheduled grape picking: the WOOFers were asleep. Last night we shared a beer. It was symbolic, cursory maybe, but appreciated. I returned home from a mellow evening in the Carussin courtyard and was invited for a drink from the illuminated second floor balcony. Sitting around a table were a Brazilian couple, two young Italian guys and a woman from Perigord that I met earlier in the day. We all spoke in English. I only stayed for one drink. In spite of their manners, I’m relatively certain these people don’t want to party with a random 40-year-old. Also, I’d had a couple beers (and a glass of local apple juice!) with Luigi for dinner. We ate fried dough topped with lardo (healthy!) and a plate of salami and bread. Definitely all I needed. Luigi was tired from a full day in the cellar, but it gave us enough time to talk about recent wines and new projects. They have a liter-bottle wine that I’m very excited about, and a new Grignolino with great labels, wild aromas and an altruistic aim. They donate a euro per bottle to a reforestation project in Ecuador. These farmers understand the grim future with climate change, and are taking action.

I went to the supermarket. I’m not thrilled to rely exclusively on food from my hosts. The beer and wine selection was too grim, worse than a Food Lion, maybe worse than a US convenience store. In a wine industry town only rock-bottom bargain shoppers buy wine from the supermarket. Shiraz from Sicily, beer for hooligans and hardcore drunks. I bought water and organic volkorn bread, and made peace with mostly mooching for another day.

It’s afternoon. Upstairs, the WOOFers are playing ping-pong. Rain is gone, hazy sunshine makes being outside appealing. I need to drink a big American coffee. Tractors and hay bales are strewn around this patio. The view is appealing. Looking south over the ruined wall you see hilly vines, apple orchards, Carussin and a dozen scattered farm buildings.

Coffee will break the inertia. In 90 minutes I will meet Franco Penna at Cascina Barsel in Canelli. It’s a short drive or a long walk. I need to wrestle control of my body back from the expansive lunch Bruna prepared in her kitchen on the top floor of Carussin. Italian meals are a sneak attack. It starts simply, you consume in moderation beans and mushrooms and tuna, then agnolotti made by grandma filled with pork dressed with butter and sage (maybe a little less moderately that course) then the coq au vin alla Carussin arrives with a side of carrots, and its all over. For you: not for the meal. I ate a leg, an earthy dark meat (two shades darker than the birds at home, like chocolate) drumstick from a bird that ranged just outside the cellar’s walls until a fateful meeting with Nonna. Bruna and Luca are too sensitive to do the dirty work, but they’ll feast on the end product.

We talked about Ed Mitchell and Michael Pollan, val d’Aosta wines and poor younger brother Matteo starving in Norway (Bruna delivered 10kg of pasta and meat to him in June), Italian success at the US Open, the joys of Bonajuto chocolate and travel in Sicily. We ate almond cookies and watermelon. I excused myself to make phone calls in the dim wifi of their courtyard, and to sip an espresso. Everyone needed to move, Luca to stretch his legs, Luigi just to the couch for a siesta. Life really doesn’t get better than that.

A Norweigan woman arrived at 3am. That’s the rumor. I have not seen her, she may be asleep still. One of the Italian guys invited me to grill dinner with them al fresco this evening. I should think of something to contribute, and find it. A large amount of wine, for example. The WOOFers drank 3 bottles of wine before 11am (it’s their one day off) and more are arriving….

La Casaccia Today!

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September 10-11, 2015

Picking grapes is a decent way to get through jet lag. It’s something to do. The time passes quickly until an hour when the sweet, sweet sleep you crave is advisable. Sunlight scrubs gross airline recycled air from your skin.

I would be a terrible farmer. For core, essential reasons. For one, absence of patience. This morning it is rainy and cold: not a time to pick grapes. So we wait. But I don’t want to wait. I want to pick Barbera. Yesterday we breezed through the last rows of Grignolino. The grapes were so perfect from a warm, dry summer that La Casaccia can even risk the harvesting assistance a bumbling American importer. On my first day of picking (ever) there was really nothing to triage. I discarded one rotten bunch in a half day of casual cutting and talking. Apart from removing the occasional section of dried grapes and skipping a tiny portion of still-ripening clusters, we simply loaded up bright orange small crates with Grignolino that looked ready-to-eat. Hard not to eat a little….

Everybody is in a good mood. Our team is led by heir-apparent Margherita, co-captained by long-term assistant and college buddy Federico, ballasted by Alejandro from Argentina, a young man of agricultural experience, but rooted in the cultivation of cereals, and rounded out by a WOOFer, Anna from Helsinki. She is as untrained as me, but has been working at La Casaccia for a few weeks, in route to a future apartment in Milan. She is a mid-30’s nomad clearly untethered from worldly concerns, strikingly happy. And then there is me, grubby, fresh off the plane.

In a lesser vintage pickers feel mired in place, crawling along rows, painstakingly extricating damaged and dangerously blemished sections of berries. This year it’s full-speed ahead. Giovanni is in the cellar with his mentor Cecchino, a man who has made wine in Cella Monte for 51 years. What an amazing asset! Every vintage since 1964 has been handled by this spry 83-year-old. He has dealt with every conceivable obstacle. Frederico and Margherita are in awe of him, actively soaking up his experience. Feederico says you can never work hard enough to keep up with (or satisfy) the old timer. He just doesn’t quit, or cut the youngsters any slack. Cecchino unloaded cartons of grapes and ran the de-stemmer until long after sunset. And he looks really healthy, strong even. Incessant work has given him the frame of a man 30 years younger. I’m not kidding, the dude is always working.

After the last parcel of Grignolino was picked, we went for a walk past abandoned and nearly-abandoned fields worked by the elderly and part-timers, parcels trellised in outlandish and outdated ways, past fig and apple trees, over hills and through cool verdant stands of forest. Feederico points out the house of his dreams, Il Paradiso, a really perfect old farmhouse looking out over several hectares of fallow land coveted by Giovanni. The route we take is quiet save the odd tractor and wasp. We pause to look at vine leaves beleaguered by oidium and other maladies, we have time to talk about domestic and foreign economics. I like that Italians are more inclined to daily discourse on large matters political and otherwise, but this conversation initiated by Frederico is not theoretical: he is approaching the end of a university oenology program and is weighing options. I give him my frank assessment based on some travel in Italy, and gut feeling. For him, America could be a smart move. Margherita is in a good position, her parents built something amazing against the odds: she can succeed. To start something new in Italy, Frederico’s challenge… the odds are stacked against him. Taxes, bureaucracy, a waning domestic consumption of wine, a stagnant (or worse) economy… moving makes sense. And he’s a trained sommelier and cheese expert with experience selling Italian wine in the very competitive Shanghai market. In the U.S. these are marketable skills.

At the last minute I packed a sweater: northern Italy, I know your tricks! And against the run of recent sunshine and predictions of my iphone, it’s pretty chilly this morning. And I’m about to go underground to check out the first fermentations. In an average vintage, natural fermentations take a day or two to start in a cold cellar. Not in 2015! Wild yeast are healthy and abundant, their natural competition (unwanted bacteria) is on the run, virtually nonexistent. Giovanni said he put his Chardonnay in tank and came back just a little later and the fermentation was beginning. He usually cultures a small vat of starter yeast from his own fields, this year it’s barely needed. Large concentrations of healthy yeast and other microorganisms are the backbone of successful organic farming. La Casaccia’s wines are clean and stable because they nurture and protect this unseen resource.

In the end, the sun won out and picking went on unfettered from mid-morning until 6pm. Two regular employees from Moldova and a childhood friend of Margherita’s joined the team. It was tough. Today’s Barbera grew on a high sun-exposed sight that fared poorly in the atypically warm 2015 vintage. Many grapes were scorched and desiccated, undesirable. They had to be cut out of already scant clusters. Also sections of the site were afflicted by flavescencia dorada, a malady spread by small winged insects. Ultimately these vines require re-grafting. The proximity to neighboring fields that are either abandoned or very neglectfully farmed makes flavescencia hard to contain, it lives in these wild places. But many rows were in rude health and numerous beautiful textbook Barbera bunches seemingly weighing a kilo each were tossed into the baskets. At the end we had 160 baskets loaded with 20 kilos of fruit each, enough to make possibly 2,500 bottles of wine. La Casaccia uses only free-run and delicate first press juice, following a law that is widely violated in the region. It keeps the bottles-per-kilo low and the wine fine, elegant often.

We ate both our meals outside, the first in the vineyard under a fig tree, the second in the winery’s courtyard immediately following the arrival of the last tractor-load of Barbera. It was dark outside but not too cool. Vegetable courses were abundant: Margherita has a great garden! Tomatoes, Ratatouille, plus plenty of antipasti and meaty agnolotti. Sleep will be easy.