It’s harvest time in Italy. If you read my previous post about our visit to the Cipolloni olive mill you’ll know that it’s not yet olive harvest time. The summer’s dry scorching weather has delayed the harvest from its traditional early October start until later in the month.

But the grape harvest, similarly affected by the summer heatwave is coming to a close. We have been able to watch and experience the harvest this year for the first time. It is a fascinating process to observe.

To a person the winemakers we have spoken with this fall have mentioned this year’s weather, a perfect storm of maladies that has conspired to undermine this season’s haul. The hot summer temperatures was not in itself a bad thing. Grapes, like olives, thrive in hot conditions. But this year was different, with the heat spell lasting weeks on end. And with little to no rain during a stretch from June through August. Summer rain, we are told, is the key to nourishing the flower on the vine and by extension the fruit. Without it, as was the case this year, the fruit never fully develops.

And so it was throughout Umbria this summer. Hot. Dry. According to some of our friends’ estimates their yield will be half of what it would be in an average year. And as the harvest approached, the rains began to fall. A good thing, yes, but rather than salvaging the fruit, it helps the leaves, taking nutrients once again from the fruit. And rain during the harvest is particularly bad, with wet ground an enemy to freshly picked grapes awaiting pickup and transport to the crushing machine.

But despite the challenging weather, we sense an interesting reaction amongst our Umbrian vintner friends. A sense of calm resignation and acceptance. They don’t seem upset or angry at the hand that was dealt them this year. Instead they acknowledge that some years the weather will be a friend and the harvest both bountiful and of exceptional quality. It is natural for the opposite to occur. They work with the crop that nature and their own efforts provide them and use their expertise to make the best of it and move on. Because in the end they are farmers. They are people that are not just connected to their land but are at one with it. They make wine from their grapes but they are not so much winemakers as farmers who make wine. And with that healthy perspective they control what they can and accept what they cannot control. And because of this, their wine has a soul, changing from year to year, reflecting what nature has given that year like the rings of a tree, always anchored to the place from which it comes.

See if you can find that in a nice bottle of malbec from Chile.

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One local winemaker who is positively excited by this year’s crop is our friend Duccio, the mastermind behind the Fontecolle winery located a few kilometers outside of Montefalco and down an impossible-to-find rutted, winding dirt road. Fontecolle is not your typical tourist destination winery. And Duccio is not your typical vintner.

A farmer in the truest sense of the word, Duccio’s four hectare winery is a one man show. Literally. With a little help from his sister, who lives in the house his family has owned on this property for three decades, and a little help in the bottling and labeling room, Duccio tends to his fields himself, maintains the plants and harvests them largely on his own, presses, vinifies and transforms the grapes into wine himself. He bottles his entire stock of 10,000 bottles per year himself using a small bottling machine that fills four bottles at a time and corks and seals them one at a time. He produces, and proudly proclaims the same, garage wine. This solo practitioner approach is a badge of honor for him and when you speak to him about what he does and how he learned his craft, you can feel the pride and the matter of factness about it all. He is a farmer who makes wine. He loves what he does.

And he does it extremely well.

It shows in his wines, two offerings that from year to year are among our favorites from Umbria, from Italy, from anywhere. His Montefalco Rosso is a blend of four grapes – sangiovese, sagrantino, merlot and alicante (a Portuguese import), his Sagrantino a soft, immediately drinkable version made from 100% sagrantino grapes that are visible in neat rows traversing the hills just beyond his pool. These are the only two wines he makes. And he makes them extremely well, year after year.

To do a tour and tasting at Fontecolle is to visit Duccio’s home. The winery and the home are one and the whole is peaceful, beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable. We are shown the “garage” area where the grapes are brought for crushing and vinification. Then underneath the pool in a series of cool dark rooms are an aging room, a bottling room and a labeling room. After the tour we climb the staircase to the other side of the pool and enjoy a tasting. Duccio brings a bottle of his Sololoro Montefalco Rosso and a bottle of Ducciochi (“Duccio Who?”) Sagrantino for us to sample. He wanders into his kitchen to find some glasses while we sit outdoor by the pool enjoying the view across the valley and playing with his cats. His sister returns home with her two children and they wander by with loaded backpacks from school and head indoors to begin their homework. Duccio brings out the glasses and some sagrantino cookies and we spend an hour sipping his delightful wines, prying information from this tight lipped man who prefers to let his wine do the talking.

This is how a farmer shares his wine with the public. By inviting you into his house and sharing his work with you. Work of which he is justly proud but which he understands and credits nature for.

See if you find that at a winery in Napa.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy