He knew just the place for us; he offered to pick up the bottles beforehand. The novelty of filling a demijohn with wine from a tank or vat is no longer appealing to me. The vino sfuso in my area doesn't do much for my taste buds, so I was a initially disappointed, thinking this was what was in store for us.
Zio picked us up in his impeccably clean compact car & zipped over a few streets until we arrived at the source of the Malavsia. In the hovel of a garage of an otherwise nondescript building, we were greeted by our wine man (sorry, his name escapes me). This was it? Not even a proper cantena? This workroom / garage? Obviously crawling with germs and bacteria? This was the idea of a good place to taste Malvasia?
Breathe.
And then, he offered a taste. I intially refused, unsure of what could be lingering in the glass. After several offers, I could no longer refuse, and well. . . at that moment . . . it suddenly all became okay. He syphoned (yes, with his lips) the liquid from his large demijohns into the bottles Zio brought. Good stuff, folks. Really good stuff. (I just like to think that the alcohol kills any possible bad stuff that could be in that bottle.)
We've since served it to guests after dinner without consequence, proving that it's indeed okay. This experience, and the retelling of it months later helps me to keep it all in perspective. This is life. This is the heart and soul of the people. This is why we travel and explore. So often we are not granted access to this realism & have to settle for the tourist view, which while still valuable, isn't nearly as rich or meaningful to me.
Grazie mille again & again to Rosy and Christian for inviting us along for the ride this past summer :)
1 comment:
You have captured the experiences that kept me going in Italy. Some people think it's always a fairyland and magical but once you live there you see how insane and difficult the living can be. Moments like these made all the chaos and frustration melt away. I've only had malvasia from the Aeolian Islands- sooooo good!! And in Sept everywhere you look are screens laid out with drying grapes! ahh... I so miss it!!
Post a Comment