was all one soft color, like layers of organdy in pale hues. This was her dream trip after all, she reminded herself, taking her husband’s hand and kissing it.
Once again Francesca was providing the commentary while Gianni drove.
“The first place we will visit is a small family-owned vineyard, as we are, except they bottle their grapes themselves. We hope to do that someday, but at the present we are selling them to a cooperative. As you know, we are in the Chianti Classico region, which has a very long history and we think produces the best wine in the world.”
“What kind of grapes is this place growing and when do they harvest?” Hattie asked, pencil and pad in hand.
“Like us, the Sangiovese variety, which matures in early October. The grape harvest, La Vendemmia, is a very special time in Chianti, and it is something no one who loves wine should miss. All the villages have festas of some sort. You may know the most famous one in Impruneta, La Festa dell’Uva, a huge all-day celebration of the uva, the grape!”
“I was there last year,” Luke said. “I’ll bring my photos over tonight for you to see if you like. Parades with floats, amazing food, and wine flowing everywhere.”
“Sign me up,” Len said.
“To be a float?” his wife said archly.
He ignored her.
“Every year,” Francesca said, “especially these last years, we watch the weather as the grapes grow. It has been very dry, a major problem, which affects the sweetness of the grape, also the flavor of the olives.”
“Global warming,” Olivia said.
Ah, Faith thought, an environmentalist. But she was right. The signs of it were all over the world. Even in Aleford. No one could remember a spring coming as early as it had this year. Daffodils and forsythia had bloomed in March.
“So when do you harvest the olives?” Hattie asked.
“Our Tuscan valleys can have an earlier frost than other parts of the Mediterranean where olives are grown, so we must pick well before then, again mid-September to mid-October. Hard to predict now. But you will hear more about this later in the afternoon when we go to the mill.”
Gianni pulled up to the front of a farmhouse that was surrounded by several other buildings. They were in sharp contrast to Luke’s villa. The age of the structures may have been similar, but that was all. No statuary, no landscaping of any sort, except for several clay pots of geraniums. A man and a woman who both appeared to be in their forties came rushing out, greeting them with smiles and a hearty welcome in Italian that needed no translation. The tour did, however, and the Rossis and Luke served as interpreters. The vintner was telling them that grapes had been cultivated on their land since the Etruscans. Maybe before, he added with a shrug. Luke, whom Faith remembered had a particular interest in these early Italians, broke in to tell them that the Etruscans were, in fact, believed to be the people who happily introduced vinoculture to the area, bringing grapevines from Asia.
“You just have to look at what they left to know how much they enjoyed good food and wine—the banqueting frescoes and the pottery—wine casks and vases, urns for all kinds of food storage.”
“I don’t know about your Etruscans,” Roderick said, “but it was a Roman, Horace, who wrote ‘No poem was ever written by a drinker of water’ and I say amen to that and when are we going to get to the tasting of this stuff ?”
It was the most Faith had heard him say, and amid the laughter that greeted it, she wondered at the cause of his seemingly constant need for alcoholic fortification. Something in addition to being married to Constance? The farmers looked a bit puzzled at the sudden merriment, but after Gianni spoke to them, obviously translating, they burst into laughter, too, and waved everyone into the first building.
An hour later they climbed back into the van, sated not only from tasting the winery’s excellent Chiantis but also from samples of the pecorino they produced that had been served on a platter filled with olives, several kinds of salami, and bread.
“Maybe it’s the wine, but I think I’m beginning to understand Italian, and if I’m right I’ve committed us to returning in the fall to help pick grapes,” Tom said. “Well, the kids should enjoy it.”
“I hear it’s very hard work,” Faith said, amused at the way this tried-and-true New Englander was taking