Morella. Bravery, Biodynamics, Isolation and Fish Markets.

Where was I mentally on my last day in Puglia? I felt inspired. I felt physically great, running through infinite landscapes of olive and plum and pomegranate had brought me into a vivid present tense. All the pasta was working miracles. Isolation in an empty 16^th century farmhouse provided focus and loneliness in equal parts. A next-to-last day loomed. I would traverse mountains in Campania, to see a few places at the 11^th hour. Traveling south from Rome, I made off-the-cuff appointments on a hunch and a recommendation, doubling down on the power of luck and chance.

A lack of bravery extended my southern excursion to Morella. Manduria isn’t the easiest place to reach. After an alternatingly drab and gorgeous drive from Trani to Bari to Taranto, highways gave way to two-lane roads through busy small towns, red lights and potholes: a slog. Malfunctioning GPS took me to a fish market on a one-way road only 100 street numbers from the actual cellar, close but simultaneously inscrutably far from our meeting point. I wove through a warren of stone-walled side streets and narrow unidirectional alleys to find the actual spot… but Lisa had split. Her mum was at the farm from Queensland, and it was time for lunch. I was late.

Armed with compass coordinates, I set out to find Lisa and Gaetano’s house in the hinterlands. Their street has no name and no sign. At least twice I parked at the end of it, and peered down a dusty gravel expanse, with no appreciable visible structures to the horizon. I circled. I went down a couple of incorrect long driveways. Eventually I grew a spine, and set off down the right road. Their new house is located a mile or two through the olive trees and bush vines. It seamlessly combines new construction with very old stone stables. Lisa said there are still artisans active in her area that build houses using centuries-old methods. The mason she employed didn’t use any power tools to cut and build her stone home. It’s a beautiful multi-story place with a panoramic view of the landscape to the sea(s.) On a clear day Lisa has spotted the mountains of Basilicata, across the water to the west. 

I like the linguistics of English speakers from faraway places. To my ear Lisa makes quirky word choices. It could be her Anglophone isolation, an Australian living in Puglia who speaks Italian most hours of her days. But Lisa is a character. Her syntax and florid vocabulary could stem from individuality alone. I like that she says groovy a lot. I like that her vocal intonations are in a register I associate with positivity, even when she’s talking about the terrible job done by their trash collector, or the hegemonic power of crop science corporations.

Lisa and Gaetano have been buying vineyards. They have 12 hectares of bush vines now, on 18 hectares of land. Manduria is drier than most of Puglia. During harvest 2016, average rainfall in the larger region was 200ml. Morella received 100ml. Rainfall in Manduria this year was 2/3 of the town’s average total.

Morella is certified biodynamic. “Biodynamics is about looking after the workers,” Lisa said. The farm is 70 meters above sea level, and surrounded by water at a distance of only a few kilometers. They are on the “instep” of the boot. “We are living here to make better grapes.” They hope to build a new winery on the same gravel road in the next year. Lisa likes to stand on her rooftop and watch fog roll in with the sirocco winds from the south. Because of the peculiar shape of the land and water surrounding Manduria, the fog bends in odd patterns, passing the vineyards by initially, before flowing back to the farm from the north.

Manduria is a warm place. Primitivo is well-suited to its local mesoclimate. Average temperature here in summer is 30 degrees Celsius. Dry winds form the north can quickly reduce humidity in the vineyards by up to 45%. “Wind is the dominant thing here,” Lisa says. 

The wines show this regional warmth in their ripeness. Because of Lisa’s work in the cellar and perspective on quality wine (she has friends in many wine regions) the Primitivos at Morella are also dry. It is common in the region to encounter sweet versions, often made sweet post-fermentation.

The 2015 Mezzogiorno (Fiano) is really subtle. It has better precision and delicacy of flavor than many cool-climate whites I encounter. It does the trick of being bright, without noticeable acidity screeching across your palate. This seamlessness is a marker of deft winemaking for me.

The 2013 Morella Primitivo Malbeck is made from fruit grown on 40-year-old bush vines. It’s very nice: savory. Malbeck has a history here in Puglia, which is why Lisa and Gaetano chose to use the local spelling for the grape.

The 2013 Old Vines bottling (from an average of 85-year-old vines) and La Signora are both very good. Intense, dry, ripe, meaty, substantial reds, with an uncommon degree of finesse and complexity.

We took a walk through their fields after our tasting. It was the right way to end a week of working in Puglia. The diverse sub-plots of vines were striking. It’s easy to notice where one old farmer’s work ended, and another’s began. Lisa’s a great guide: quick-witted, funny, thoughtful and opinionated. She has a global perspective on the challenges facing farmers in her new locale. We talked at length about the reasons why natural wine has resonance in this area. “By the 80’s fermentation in Puglia had changed. People had very little involvement (in the process.) They made wine… and waited for the E.U. to distill it.”

“Technology took hold, via big wineries. Yeasts, autofermenters, temperature control: they got control of fermentation, but in a sterile way.”

But awareness of a different path was only dormant. “Before the 80’s, everyone made wine at home. There was great knowledge, and courage. The wines were volatile, often bad.”

Hence, the seeds of the local natural wine movement. “We can start a new era, with a traditional point of view. Small winemakers today can depart from the point of view of the home winemaker, it’s what people in their families used to do anyway.” Lisa believes this is the reason Italy is such a source of adopters of natural winemaking. “People here used to make tons of Pet Nat wines, even. That would often explode….” Petillant Naturel wines are fashionable in natural wine circles. They are sparkling wine bottled before the secondary fermentation is finished, without the addition of yeasts or sugars. With the assistance of talented oenologists like Lisa, stable and tasty wines made on a human scale can become a part of the area’s future.

I left. The sun was already low in the sky. My drive north became dreamy radiant orange port towns, and painful westward squinting. Today, as I multitask hopscotch, and chalk drawings of bugs and flowers with my sunny three-year-old, I strain to remember the feel of that remote place. Windy. Arid. A little forlorn. Wild.

Fausto from Torre dei Beati. All the fish. Alone in Puglia.

A little rain is falling. A damp notebook and circling flies may force my retreat in a moment. Which isn’t a hardship. Inside is airy, vaulted, dramatic space. Rooms made of stone, cool, shifting patterns of dark and light, on ledges, thick doorways, heavy wood beams. I’ve rented an apartment for most of a week, for a pittance (think Red Roof Inn prices) and it’s amazing. The owners have provided a week’s worth of local fare. The place is spotless. It has weathered beauty. It has wi-fi, and a fancy shower. The farmhouse is surrounded by olive groves and broken white rock plateaus, to every horizon.

Posta Santa Croce dates from at least the 1630’s: written references begin in that period. Architecture makes it obvious that the farm has been here significantly longer than 400 years. As you’d expect there is a church, wound by ripening pomegranates and bordered by an elaborate tree house. Rope swings descend from cypress trees. And there’s an ancient stage! It is dotted with bright green 25-gallon demijohns, and faces an audience of hay bale “seats.” The driveway winds for a kilometer from the paved two-lane road, a link to coastal towns of interest, Trani, Corato. Octagonal Castel del Monte, constructed by fan-of-geometry Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (say that after two glasses of Primitivo) in the 13^th century is very close, hiking distance. Orchards of cherries and apricots are losing their foliage: harvest is complete. Gargantuan cacti with radiant red-and-orange tips jostle against everything. They threaten to take over. Equally invasive rosemary and feral grape vines struggle back. They vie for scant earth between pockmarked stones.

I wanted to write in the stone patio off the apartment at Posta Santa Croce, in Puglia. But I’m distractible in the extreme, until I hit the groove. Flies might stymie productivity. The patio is a terrific uneven mass of un-mortared walls, sturdy wooden workbenches for sorting fruit, olives etc., and a huge low-walled fountain. It’s not as cool as it could be in this here month of October, on a cloudy day. Humid, that’s the issue. In Francavilla al Mare the weather was perfect, but the architecture was lacking. Retreating sore-loser Nazis destroyed what had been a jewel of the Adriactic, a summer beach destination for affluent citizens of Naples and Rome. Francavilla still has the beach, and it’s truly lovely. Waves barely lap the shore, sand isn’t as abundant as in Pescara, but there’s 100 feet or more of basking space between promenade and sea. Only a few nice villas remain, their faded glory further marred by proximity to major roads. In their place, squat, square, functional hotels and residences. In summer you have limitless choices of beachfront seafood restaurants, some even require guests to eat on tables in the sand. By October these places are all closed, Francavilla has shrunk unexplainably back to its off-season size of 40,000 or so locals. Better to visit now than during July when the bumping nightclubs of Pescara keep even second-cousin Francavilla raucous until 1am. That’s middle-age speaking. For young people and seekers of sun and sexy, high season has plenty to offer.

Fausto Albanesi’s home is a legit construction site. There was water damage that required scaffolding. Fausto’s wife Adrianna Galasso thought, “why not add an additional floor onto the currently four-story building?” Apparently scaffolding is the expensive part… though building a whole new apartment and roof can’t be cheap! I didn’t recognize the building with its current exoskeleton, shrouded in industrial plastic. After driving past it 10 times like a crazy person, turning a 1km trip from my hotel into a 30-minute chore, I found the correct driveway, and descended into an empty parking lot. I rang the bell, walked around for show, then accepted I was probably supposed to meet Fausto at the winery, not his house. Makes sense, I knew they were picking Pecorino today. We hadn’t really talked particulars. So I stole some figs, and headed for the cellar, in the hills of Loreto Aprutino.

 

Via email Fausto seems stressed. In person it’s clear that he is very tired, the toll of two construction projects. The winery is also expanding, to make triage of fruit easier at harvest, and to do more movement of grapes via gravity. In spite of numerous accolades, there isn’t sufficient cash to do all this activity at once, so work goes slowly. The Wine Advocate gave a wine of Fausto’s over 90 points recently… though neither Fausto or I could recall which wine, or what the score was! Gambero Rosso picked his Pecorino as one of Italy’s top 50 wines. He’s widely cited as a qualitative leader in the “new” (not Valentini, Pepe, or Masciarelli) generation of Abruzzo estates. Fausto is proud of these accolades. By nature he is quiet, thoughtful, intellectual about wine. He knows the wines of many other regions in detail, including non-Italian places. He knows the underutilized potential of Abruzzo’s countryside. Which is vast. After Trapani in Sicily, Chieti is Italy’s second most productive grape-growing province, in terms of quantity.

“Seventy percent of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is bottled outside of Abruzzo.” Take a second for that to sink in. “What other region would allow this? Eighty percent of Abruzzo’s money, that is intended to prevent fraud, is spent on enforcement inside of Abruzzo, on checking what I do,” Fausto states. “But who is checking on the Abruzzo wine bottled in Veneto, or Bordeaux? Abuzzo is a sleeping giant. It benefits many others that we never wake up.”

We’re having this conversation at a great, bustling place on the beach in Pescara called Ristorante Pizzeria Marechiaro. Most places in Francavilla were either closed for the season, or full. In Pescara we park in a graffiti-covered courtyard (some really artful pieces, I wanted to take photos but was afraid Fausto would consider it strange.) “The restaurant isn’t in the best neighborhood,” he says, which I think is pretty funny: grandmas are strolling around. College kids, too, dressed in the uniform of hodgepodge distressed tight grey and black worn by the vast majority of young Italians. Fausto’s oldest daughter goes to school in Pescara. He calls her at 1am to see if she wants to join us. “It’s too early!” she said

Inside, the restaurant is full. Next to us, a couple of teenagers seem to be on an epic breakup date. The boy’s eyes emit pure despair. There are women in tight short dresses, heels and bling, multicultural, multi-generational families, long tables with seniors and their progeny. At least one group of foreigners, possibly English. It is awesomely thriving, and representative of Pescara. The wine list is as eclectic. We settle on glasses of Franciacorta, followed by 2014 Kofererohof Kerner (which I know reasonably well) and 2010 I Clivi Malvasia (which is new for me.) A basket of hot wedges of unadorned pizza comes out, followed by a barrage of fantastic un-ordered seafood. Perfect crudo, including a local version of uni, and a Fasolari clam: red, firm, pure enjoyment. A pile of perfect scampi, then big grilled gamberi, a zucchini flower stuffed with baccala, also my alien nemesis: the Panocchia. It tastes like lobster, it looks like a more terrifying villain from Starship Troopers. I’ll have nightmares.

I’m glad we made it here. At 3pm Fausto was clearly fading. His assertion that we would meet for dinner at 8:30 seemed improbable. The Pecorino picking was just completed when I arrived. A nine-person team was at the sorting table. They would work until an hour after Fausto and I were feasting on crudo that night. Sorting is serious business at Torre dei Beati. As afternoon turned to evening Fausto and I surveyed his most recent planting s of Montepulciano and Pecorino, and a small stand of dritta olives. Afflicted once again (like in 2014) with crop-destroying flies. Fausto was buying 2015 oil for personal use. “If you see 2016 olive oil from Abruzzo, it’s full of poison,” he said.

At last, the Gallinella arrives. It’s a big red fish, presented pre-dinner for our approval. It comes out and is taken apart on a vast platter, the hinterlands of which are filled to overflowing with fresh chitarra pasta. The chef is showing off what’s best of local fare, and I heartily approve. By the end of my 50% of this monster, my gut is busting. Fausto orders gentian, to ease the pain. Then, inexplicably, he begins selling the plan of going to Chicco, the best gelateria in Francavilla, for dessert. It’s nearly 1am! But we speed down the coast, passing many open ice cream shops. Apparently there is a god: Chicco is closed. The couple that own it are old, Fausto explains. The wife makes excellent small pizzas. I dodge death-by-pizza. We meet up at 9:30am for a ridiculous, perfect breakfast of espresso and gelato at l’altro, in Pescara’s central pedestrian area. My road-worn metabolism had done its job, the danger had passed. In fairness to Fausto, he’s an enthusiast, not a glutton. We were meeting to go sea kayaking. Rain intervened. Gelato was the logical plan B.

Five-year-old kids play soccer on a stone court, dribbling and passing with exceptional determination. I’m familiar with talent levels at this age, courtesy of my two sporty daughters. We say our goodbyes. He will come to North Carolina in early 2017.

The sounds of a happy child. The proprietor’s kid will be bored if he grows up here! Sunset comes to Puglia.

Centorame 2016. A senza SO2 success story. Plus frutti di mare, and baroque hotel ridiculousness.

30 September 2016

Centorame.

My hotel is Italian nice. By that I mean tons of marble, columns, big planters filled with roses, the most hi-tech shower that I’ve ever seen (it has a digital display, with many settings, and about 14 places where water can shoot out at you) a perpetually empty restaurant and bar with an extensive wine list, a bored waiter in a white coat, and appealing aromas of food that waft out into the mirrored hallway, unexplained. Who is eating this delicious-smelling fare? I’m holed up on a second-floor balcony, watching runners trot along the seafront, past beached tiny fishing boats and symmetrically patterned beach umbrellas and chairs. Francavilla la Mare is deserted. It is two hours after sunset and the air is cool, but the day was beautiful, sunny with a high temperature of maybe 75? I was in the colli Teremane to the north, hills close enough to Gran Sasso, and steep enough to be significantly cooler than sea level. This was a very beach-worthy day. Climate change may make early October the prime secret season for unfettered Italian tourism. Don’t tell your neighbors: let them continue to pile in during blistering July and August.

I’m eating (slowly) a Robiola for dinner, and drinking a fantastic bottle of no-sulfur Montepulciano from Lamberto Vannuci, of Centorame. Holy crap. His sulfured S. Michele Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is solid, what you’d expect from an oak-averse certified-organic estate with prime, steep, old Montepulciano vineyards. Truth be told, it’s a wine that I import, and respect, but don’t drink terribly often. It is better than most. But the no-sulfur wine (which Lamberto named Liberamente) is alive! It sings, it’s fresh: it’s a really enjoyable bottle that proves correct a raft of natural wine dogma. At least, when applied by Lamberto.

Some things you should know. Lamberto is fastidious. His cellar is squeaky clean. Full, but organized. His vineyard work is scrupulous. He warned me that a few weeks ago his lower-elevation Montepulciano vines were hit by hail. I was expecting a disaster. And there was some damage. But I’ve seen more straggly, blighted fruit from farmers who felt their harvest to be a complete success. In short, Lamberto’s standards are high. He’s the person who should be making no sulfur wine. He is technically skilled, and as practical as he is idealistic.

He’s also the reason I’m more-or-less skipping dinner. When I arrived at the cellar at noon, his first utterance to me was, “Meat, or fish?” Well… fish. So we hop in the Audi (Quattro, which he also drives along steep dirt vineyard trails) and zoom down at Italian speed to a restaurant called Manetta. It is on the Adriatic, and serves solely seafood. A pasta course was offered… between the sixth and seventh course. I declined, politely moved onto my “secondi,” a platter of grilled langoustines, anchovies, shrimp, calamari, and fish I don’t recognize. Most courses were small, and raw, and “simple” in the sense they were delicate, and barely adorned. A little salt, olive oil, the occasional brush stroke of a fruit or bean puree. Super fresh. The calories piled up. The sparkling Pecorino from Centorame, as yet not disgorged, ably accompanied everything, until we finished the bottle. It is lunch, after all. Maybe San Pellegrino is best for the remainder.

The place was close to empty when we arrived at 1pm. The chef/proprietor stopped by our table on multiple occasions, to steal a sip of Pecorino, and to chat. His 4-year-old son dribbled a soccer ball around the dining room, to the consternation of the chef and amusement of Lamberto and I. Lamberto’s son is a fan of Napoli, which he considers… strange. Juve, Milan, Inter, ok. Napoli? I weakly assert they have been good in recent seasons. I’m wearing a Diego Maradonna T-Shirt (courtesy of Peyton at Mission Pizza) so I should stick up for his iconic side. Eventually groups of other patrons fill up the place. Locals. Affluent. We were early. Lamberto says this is one of the three or four best seafood spots in Abruzzo. Their fish is impeccably fresh.

 We return to the vineyard. Lamberto’s father is supervising the first day of harvesting Monepulciano. The pickers are timeless, as is often true. Women in house coats, bandanas, some entirely lacking teeth but with forearms that could snap my neck in a second! Centorame’s fields are steep, and topped with an array of solar panels. Back at the winery, de-stemming is beginning. The fruit looks and tastes fine. Lamberto’s father checks individual berries for potential alcohol. I think the harvest will be tough, but successful.

Lamberto is a nice guy. He makes really solid wine in a region blighted by a reputation for cheap co-op junk. He commiserates with me about the fate of Montepulciano, which he likens to Chianti. The wine can be great. Most drinkers expect it to be cheap. Lamberto’s work is a small but true, virtuous attempt to change perceptions of the wine of this homeland.