Picking Grapes!

Post date: May 04, 2014 6:0:53 AM

Picking Grapes!

Wine is a vital part of the Italian Culture. Along with it's role in Italian cuisine, Wine was used for medicinal purposes. Have a cold? Drink some wine! Have the black plague? Try the chianti! Ego Preggo? Fun Fact- Babies LOVE wine! Luckily they figured it out eventually, but the growing, cultivation, and consumption of wine is an art that has been mastered by the Italian People.

Travel Tip: Since the wine in Italy differs by region, it is important to order the "house wine" from each place you go, because there will be significant differences from town to town.

In Italian: Vorrei un (mezzo) litro di vino della casa!

In English: I would like a (half) liter of the house wine! *Italian wine can be very strong!

In the Fall of 2012, I went with my family to the vineyard of our second cousin Colleen and her husband Galliano. After spending the morning harvesting row after row of grape vines, jumping from spiders, and chatting with friends and family, everyone sat down to a delicious potluck in the shade. With the sun in our hair, and the birds singing, it was the perfect day. To de-stem the grapes, we ground our loot into a giant metal mixer that separates the grapes from their stems. We then stripped our feel and jumped into buckets of sugary mush!