Fall 2006 Spannocchia Vendemmia
21 September 2006
The grape harvest at Spannocchia has begun! The staff has been diligently checking the sugar level of the grapes, and decided yesterday that indeed the white grapes were ready to be harvested. The schedule was cleared of all other activities, and everyone from Randall and Riccio to the interns to the group from Portland State University trouped down to the Palazze Logge vineyard this morning, after the dew had dried. They cut the bunches and loaded them in large red crates on the tractor to be transported to the cantina. The white grape vendemmia (which means grape harvest in Italian) will be over by this evening, with the red grapes and the white grapes selected for Vin Santo to remain on the vine to continue to sweeten for another 10 days or even two weeks, depending on the weather.
Martha, the intern who works with the grapes and olives, spent most of the morning in the cantina with Angelo actually making the Trebbiano and Malvasia bianca grapes into wine. The process starts with a machine that removes the stems, freeing the individual grapes to move through a large tube into the press. The grapes are then pressed, the juice and skins are separated and the filtered juice makes its way into a large aluminum container to start the fermentation process that makes grape juice (sugar) into wine (alcohol). This 2006 Spannocchia white wine will be ready for “wine on the terrace” by spring 2007!
A presto!
Welcome to the Spannocchia weblog - “Life on a Tuscan Farm” - where we will share news, updates, and anecdotes about life at Tenuta di Spannocchia, an organic agricultural estate and education center located in the rolling hills near Siena, Italy. Through this blog, members of the Spannocchia Foundation can find out about what’s happening at Spannocchia, even if they can’t come visit us in person!Our mission is to encourage global dialogue about sustaining cultural landscapes for future generations through the example of Tenuta di Spannocchia. What better way to do this than to post updates and photos about our efforts at Spannocchia, and hope for feedback from people who are committed to the same principles that we are: sustainable use of natural resources, preservation of rural culture, respect for our land and the community that thrives from it, and better understanding of how humans interact with the landscape.