At the south eastern-most tip of Liguria, past Cinque Terre and just before Tuscany, lies a long, narrow inlet called the Gulf of La Spezia. On each side of the Gulf, sitting almost directly opposite each other, are the two villages of Lerici and Portovenere. They have been popular vacation spots as far back as the days of Percy Shelley and his contemporaries who lived and traveled in the area so much that it became dubbed as the Gulf of Poets.

Lerici is on the eastern side of the bay, and on a clear summer day it’s swarming with people browsing the open markets along the waterfront and wandering the narrow streets in the old city center. The main square, Piazza Garibaldi, is a colorful, triangular space that opens to the harbor and is lined by pastel buildings and open air cafes. Overlooking the harbor sits the Castello, a defensive fortification dating back to the 13^th century. It rests atop a little point that forms a protected area full of sailboats and speedboats. Below the Castello a wide, rocky jetty stretches out into the bay where sunbathers take up residence on the flat rocks. The wind gusts and fills the air with the melodic sound of rigs and pulleys clinking against dozens of sailboat masts. A tall set of stairs leads from the waterfront up to the Castello where there are sweeping views across the Gulf to Portovenere.

A well-serviced bus system links all the big towns in this area of Liguria, so we took the bus from Lerici to Portovenere, pausing briefly at the midpoint of La Spezia for a bus transfer. There’s a running joke in Genova (the capital of Liguria), “which city is worse La Spezia or Savona?” The joke comes from the fact that both cities are smaller provincial capitals and are shipping ports, which therefore means not so pretty. We found nothing to complain about in La Spezia, much like our visit to Savona. With its wide, grid-like streets, including a few pedestrian only shopping areas, it was a breath of fresh air from the overcrowded quarters of the much more touristy Lerici and Portovenere.

Portovenere is out on the western-most tip of the Gulf of La Spezia and is accessible only by one road due to its isolated location on a rocky point. It’s a very popular spot with the tourists, and for good reason. A row of five and six story, pastel colored buildings line the tranquil bay. Behind that, a narrow street is filled with elaterids, bakeries and souvenir stores that are always fun to browse. At the very tip of the point on which Portovenere lies is the small, white and grey striped church of San Pietro. It blends into the surroundings so well that it looks like it grew out of the rocks themselves. From the church you can look to the left across the Gulf towards Lerici and to the right along the open sea and to the steep hills that hide Cinque Terre in their folds. Behind San Pietro, higher up on the hill is an old defensive castle where there are memorable views looking down towards San Pietro with the open sea as a backdrop. It’s a perfect spot for escaping the crowds and enjoying the spectacular scenery that is Liguria.

To see more of our pictures, click here.

We spent the better part of Tuesday and Wednesday bottling wine from the 2006 harvest. This wine is a mix of mostly Sangiovese with a little bit of Pinot Nero. It will be the first vintage that confirms to the Montecucco DOC standards, and Tutilo thinks it will be good enough to enter into competitions. It still needs to age in the bottle for another six months or so, but based on the generous portions that we’ve sampled during the bottling process, we couldn’t agree more.

Bottling consists of attaching a small pump with a system of tubes and vacuum seals to the wine tank. Each bottle is filled up by hand, one at a time by placing it under a special nozzle on the pump and opening the faucet on the wine tank. Then the bottle is moved to a very simple corking machine where a hand operated lever squeezes the cork into the bottle. We’ve become quite deft bottlers and corkers…518 bottles later.

Friday was spent getting ready for the 2007 vendemmia, or harvest. There will actually be three separate harvests this year to ensure that each bunch of grapes is picked at optimal ripeness. The early ripening Pinot Nero was picked about 2 weeks ago, and the late ripening portion of Sangiovese will be picked in 3 weeks. Tomorrow is vendemmia number 2 for the first batch of Sangiovese.

Tutilo has prepared a chart of the entire vineyard with a space for each individual grape vine. I spent the day trailing behind him as he tested the sugar content of the grapes from each and every plant so that we could mark on the chart which vines to pick and which to leave to ripen further. The sugar is tested using a little device called a refractometer that resembles a small telescope with one end cut off at a sloping angle. Grape juice is smeared on the plastic plate at the end, covered with another clear plastic plate and held up to the light for reading. A reading of 100 is optimal. Anything below that will be too sour and acidic, anything much above that will be too sweet and alcoholic. A sugar reading of 100 translates into an alcohol content in the final product of about 14%. A perfect, strong and complex wine!

We haven’t stomped any grapes yet, but we’ve come close. Highlights so far include:

La vendemmia (the grape harvest) will be on Saturday. The pinot nero grapes we were going to be picking this weekend were ready early because of the hot weather this summer. We will be picking the first batch of Sangiovese grapes this weekend.

The grape must explosion I mentioned was perhaps one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. We had to pump the fermented wine, grape skins and all, into a strainer to separate the liquid from the must. At the end of this process, a pressurized press is used to squeeze out every last bit of liquid from the must. There was a little too much juice left in the must because as it was being pressed with about 150-200 pounds of pressure, the must exploded from the strainer all over Tutilo (the winemaker extrordinaire), myself, the ceiling , and the wall about 20 feet away. Tutilo’s face was so completely covered with grape skins that when he took his glasses off, two bright circles around his eyes were the only part of his face that was still clean. (Think Elmer Fudd’s face when Daffy Duck pokes his finger in Elmer’s shotgun). Nonetheless, the room was cleaned, no one was hurt, and most importantly, there was still enough must with which to make grappa.

We will be in Monticello Amiata in Tuscany from Friday, August 31st (Happy Birthday, Mom!) until September 8th volunteering at a vineyard for la vendemmia (grape harvest).

Upon our return we’ll have a few posts ready to go up, including “Une Semaine a Paris” and “Lerici and Portovenere”.

See the video below for a little idea of what we may be up to this coming week. I, for one, am hoping our experience is very similar to what you will see.

A Presto!

Just in case the video doesn’t show below, click here.

Verona was one of the cities that made the short list of places to visit in Italy, mainly because of the summer opera performances staged in the Roman Arena. The city of Verona is centered around the Adige River, which flows through it in an S-shape pattern with the historic center tucked neatly inside one of the river’s curls.

The Arena stands proudly at the entrance to the historic center. It’s one of the best preserved Roman Arenas in the world, and you can stand and gaze at the completely intact pink and white limestone arches that form the inner shell of the Arena. At one end of the stadium a stretch of four taller arches indicate where the outer shell once was. Inside the Arena we saw a performance of Aida, and despite not knowing much about the plot we thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the first two acts which included a lot of colorful set dressings and exciting choreography. It was really incredible to be sitting on the marble grand stands thinking back to the spectators who were sitting in the same spot 2000 years ago.

Besides the Arena, the best known site in Verona is Juliet’s balcony. Even though Shakespeare probably never laid eyes on the balcony and the small courtyard below is jam packed with tourists from all corners of the world, it’s still an enchanting little area.

The rest of the historic center is quite beautiful, filled with interesting architecture, beautiful churches and open squares. In the heart of the old town are the adjoining Piazza Erbe and Piazza dei Signori. Piazza Erbe is a giant, busting square with an open air market in the middle and street traffic inching along the periphery. A glance up in any direction offers rewarding views to the towering Torre dei Lamberti or to one of the many frescoed palazzos. Through the archway from which a whale bone hangs is Piazza dei Signori, a quieter square but equally as beautiful. Palazzos topped with statues and cornicing look down upon a single marble statue of Dante as the centerpiece of the square. Just off Piazza dei Signori are the Arche Scaligeri, which are elaborately carved, gothic sarcophaguses, and the Scala della Ragione, a majestic brick and marble outdoor staircase that leads to the second floor of Palazzo della Ragione.

Throughout Verona there are numerous churches with beautiful facades. The Duomo, in particular, has unique carvings and statues as part of its façade. Across the river over the Pietra Bridge, which dates back to the first and second centuries, is the site of the Roman Theater where ruins still mark its existence. The area is used today for outdoor performances. Walking along the Adige River provides great views back in to the city. A particularly charming spot is where the river curves between the two curls of the S at Castelvecchio, an old defensive fortress covered with rows upon rows of brick cornicing. The Scaligero Bridge traverses the Adige at Castelvecchio, and just like the fortress, it’s laced with brick cornicing.

Walking the streets of this beautiful and historic city it’s no wonder Shakespeare called it “fair Verona.”

For more pictures from Verona, click here.

In one of our Liguria tourist brochures we found a brief reference to a brewery in Busalla, a little town just north of Genova. Any mention of beer in Italy has a way of jumping out at us. The brewery was a bit of a phantom, though, because we couldn’t find any more information about it. After confirming with our friends that the brewery does indeed exist we decided to seek it out for ourselves.

Armed with nothing more than images of fresh brewed beer bouncing through our minds and off our eager taste buds, we arrived in Busalla. It was lunch time, which in Italy, especially in the smaller towns, means that everyone is shuttered-up in their homes and seated around the dinner table for at least a couple hours. There’s also no tourist information office in Busalla, so we were on our own to find a way to the brewery.

We took a left out of the train station and headed towards the center of town, hoping to pass an informative map or street sign. Unfortunately, we had no such luck. We wandered through the streets of Busalla for at least another hour, following the main street from one end of the town to the other, and making a detour over a bridge across the river to a examine cluster of signs that turned out to have nothing more relevant than a banner advertising a beer festival in a different town on a previous week-end.

Finally, we came to our senses and asked a kind woman at the train station newspaper stand for directions. She enthusiastically instructed us to walk straight down the main road and take a left at the gas station. The brewery would be soon after that. Easy enough, but why hadn’t we already found the brewery ourselves? Turns out there are about 4 gas stations straight down the road, and none of them has an apparent left turn near-by. We walked for another hour, doing our best to figure out the instructions. Eventually, as we stared further down the road into the wilderness and back at the out-of-the-way track we had taken, we knew we were in the wrong place.

We flagged down the one and only person on the street, and asked him if he knew where the brewery was. As soon as he began his directions, we realized we had been mere meters away from the brewery earlier in the day. The Busalla brewery isn’t actually in Busalla, it’s just over the border in the neighboring town of Savignone!

In no time, we found the familiar sign for Savignone which we had turned back at earlier in the day. We rounded the corner behind it and came upon the welcoming sight of the brewery with picnic tables and umbrellas under the colorful sign of a woman dressed in 1920’s style party clothes admiring 3 tall glasses of beer. But wait, it was 4pm and the brewery was closed! A small sign on the front door informed us that it would open at 6pm. Now we had a big decision to make. Did we call it a day and return another time during open hours, or did we hang around Busalla for another few hours waiting for 6 o’clock? Our deprived taste buds won out, and we rested in the town park for awhile before returning to the Busalla Brewery at 6:00 on the dot.

The beer was worth the wait. They had four draughts on tap: Muller, Ambra, Rubin, and Castagnasca. Our favorites were Rubin a dark, mild tasting brew and Castagnasca, a blonde beer with the unusual flavor of chestnuts. Busalla Brewery also bottles its beer so we left with more than just the knowledge of how and when to go to the brewery, but also with a few bottles for later.