of rain and grapes and poetry

It's been quite an eventful week. The long awaited 'proper rain' has at last arrived. We've had some real downpours at the beginning of the week, marking the end of this year's watering period. We harvested most of the remaining tomatoes, before rot can set in, making some more tomato sauce and green tomato jam with rum. I was going to pass on the recipe, but there's so much more that happened this week.

Today in particular we were torn between two festas. One was in our village, the 25th Cesare Orsini Poetry Prize. Some may remember that last year the event got practically rained off. The concert piano that had to be shifted up to our little piazza with great care, stayed under cover and we simply invited the pianist and 2 Swedish tourists in to our kitchen for a glass of wine. This year, the same pianist was there, but brought a handier electric piano with him and a soprano singer.

Rain did arrive again, so we all took refuge in our next door neighbour's living room, where the poetry readings took place as well as a small concert. When I say living room, they don't actually spend much time in there and it's more a small private museum. It's in the other half of the palazzo of which we inhabit the former servants quarters.

The music was mostly Puccini. Now I must admit I'm a bit ignorant when it comes to opera and always found it a bit of an overblown art form, sort of artificial if you know what I mean. However I've never stood 5 feet from a soprano in full voice in somebodies living room. I must say you start to realise how physically fit these singers have to be, and on full blast she'd compete with a small rock band in volume. It really goes right under your skin. No doubt this little video won't give it justice, but it'll give you a flavour

In addition there's been a small craft's market, a photo exhibition and and exhibition of old farm machinery, antiques and old motorbikes. The other festa we had been wanting to see for some time was the Festa dell'Uva in Vezzano Ligure. I have mentioned the merits of this village before and maybe I should shut up about it.

It beats me why tens of thousands flock to Siena and San Gimignano to see the palio and get ripped off in tacky tourist shops, when there is this beautiful place with probably the best view in all of Italy. It's always nice to visit, but the grape festival is the highlight of the year. The whole town is decorated in grapes.

Vezzano is quite a widely spread village/town with many quarters known as Rione. The inhabitants then indulge in various competions against each other, including a vintner's race and a procession in fancy dress. Each Rione has it's specific theme, which may be:

Roman...

Medieval...

or even cross dressing!!!

There was dancing in the streets...

...but it was all a bit much for some...

MAGISTRI STOPINI POETAE PONZANENSIS CAPRICCIA

Well here we are again. Sunday seems to be the day for blog updates. As announced last weekend, autumn has definitely arrived. Cooler sunny days are interrupted by rainy ones and showers. Today we got drenched on our bikes on our way home from Arcola. Friday we hardly left the house although it did dry up in the afternoon. Many of our neighbours have begun their grape harvests. Our vines in Villa have yet again succumbed to disease and not produced anything of note. The vines we planted last year are of course not producing yet, but they mostly seem to have survived the dry summer. I shall help our friend and neighbour Carlo with his grape harvest at the beginning of October. Modern wine producers measure the best time to pick their grapes by monitoring sugar and acid contents on a daily basis, but Carlo uses the scientific method of “my son, who likes helping with the vendemmia, comes back from holiday on the 3rd October; that’s when we’ll harvest.” Harvesting that late for exclusively white wines made from Vermentino means he produces quite alcoholic wines with low acidity. I’m having a glass of his wine from last year as I write this.

We still carry large crops back from our land, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, apples and beans today. Something I don’t think I have mentioned is that we have had our daily handful of strawberries since May until now. Never enough at any one time to make jam out of or even bother carrying home, but just enough to pop them into your mouth whenever we are in Arcola.

The festa season is coming towards the end. Tonight there is the annual event in honour of Ponzano Superiore’s most famous son, Cesare Orsini. I’ve been trying to find out a bit more about the man on the internet, but clearly his fame has not spread widely beyond his home town. All I could find out was that the man lived in Ponzano between 1571 to possibly 1636 and wrote amongst other things something called the ‘Cappriccia Macaronica’. He himself felt important enough to give himself an artist’s name: Magister Stopinus. In a very brief mention on Wikipedia for Santo Stefano he is described as a bad Latin poet. Well I was hoping I could find a nice little quote to introduce this entry, but I could only find this picture of him and his bad hair do.

Anyway, the poetry readings are to be followed by a concert. Hope the rain stays away.