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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, wine making the old ways
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Wine making the old ways
Dear readers, in our previous post we have mentioned several time that
the first inhabitant of Genzano probably lived in the caves in the chasms below
the town of Genzano. There are reasons to believe that it is true, just because
this could be the only explanation possible that these caves were dug out from
the first inhabitant of this region to shelter and live in them; but in my
young days they were used to make wine, so let me tell you about how we made
wine in those caves.
WINE MAKING IN GENZANO CHASMS CAVES
Dear readers I am really going to talk about wine making in Genzano, now
don’t get me wrong but this is not the place where the famous wine Cinzano is
made, so in this hub there is not going to be any, chin, chin; chin, chin
Cinzano? But the reason I am writing this is that Genzano happens to be the
place where I was born and lived my young life and therefore, I would like to
tell you how and what we used to do then. So, let me take you to see another
place at another time, because I would like you to see what I saw when I was
young, so that you would understand the old way of life that we were living in
Genzano in those times at a certain special time of the year, when it was wine
making time. And I may suggest that perhaps my readers could compare the ways
of living of those times with today’s ways of living, just to give this article
an extra meaning so to speak.
Genzano and its caves
This is where the first inhabitants of Genzano used to live in the
beginning and now they make wine
Even today, when I think about the town of Genzano di Lucania, and
therefore the town where I came from, I cannot help thinking about the chasms
and their caves at the time of wine making as a whole unit, and I cannot help
thinking about the time of wine making in the chasms caves when I was young,
because we were involved in wine making, since we had some vineyards and a
large share of one of these caves, so we made our own wine in the cave.
Nowadays, when I think of wine making I mentally recall what was going on in
this chasm where we had our cave and we made our wine, so let me tell you how I
feel about it, I feel that there was something very unusual and scenic about
this chasm in this town, which I believe that people from outside and not
familiar with the sort of set up would be amazed to see, if they could see it
happening as it was happening when I was young. Because at the time of wine
making the whole chasm seems to become alive in its unique way; with so many
people going around in this archaic place, and you could feel as if you were
living in another era; or perhaps you would thing that you were dreaming, or
that you were living on a different planet.
If you look and try to imagine what’s going on at this upper end of the
chasm, which is the beginning of the chasm situated next to the old town and
this is where most of the caves are and therefore the busiest place at this
time of the year. This chasm doesn’t seem to have a name nowadays, but I think
that it was called Vallone St. Antun. (Chasm St Antony)
During most of the year this wild and dangerous place has been almost
deserted, except for a few people passing in the ancient and steep stone paved
main road, which was once very busy for centuries, because the town’s people of
that time used to go to the fountain of ‘Capodaqua’ to do their washing, and
also to fetch good drinkable water for their own needs in their houses; because
the water of the fountain Cavallina which is/was the fountain situated in the
town was not much good to drink, and at the same time, before the reticulated
water supply came to town, this fountain Cavallina wasn’t big enough to supply
the whole town.
But after they brought in the reticulated water supply to Genzano, I
guess that this was early in the 1900, therefore soon after that the town’s
people installed running water in their own houses as soon as they could afford
it. And so the old custom of going to the fountain of Capodaqua to wash and
bring water to town slowly died down. So nowadays the people of Genzano don’t
go to the fountain of Capodaqua as much as they used to go, that is except at
the time of wine making, because it is easier to fetch water from the fountain
to the caves, than it would be to bring down the water through the steep road
from town. So during the year, generally there are only a few people coming
down the ancient road on their ways to some of their own fields or vineyards
past the chasm, or just a few owners of the caves, who would be coming to the
caves to take home some wine.
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Life in the chasms
Life and sounds in Genzano chasms when I was young
Now I would like to describe to you the scene in this chasm, in the same
way as I have experienced it when I was young. So let me go back in time to the
time when I was a teenager, to the interesting time when I was helping to carry
the harvested grapes from the vineyards to the caves: Perhaps this is the best
and possibly the only way to describe what it was like then, which also is how
it had been for centuries before my time; but nowadays even this scene may be
slightly different as even here things are changing, because they have made
those narrow paths wider, so that they can go down the chasm with a tractor,
instead of carrying all those heavy weights on horseback.
Now, at the time when I was a teenager I used to help at grapes harvest
time, my job was that of a donkey-boy, while I was helping to carry grapes to
our cave to make wine. So, I would have an ass with me to help me carry the
grapes to the cave, in the morning I would go to the small stable to get the
donkey ready, then I would go to the vineyard to load the donkey with grapes,
and then I would drive the donkey to the cave unload the grapes and crush them
with the crushing machine. In order to load the grapes onto the donkey, the
donkey had a special heavy saddle fixed on its back, so that we could tie two
large watertight wooden bins on her back, one on each side.
Those wooden bins would old about two bushels each, so the donkey would
be carrying about 80 to 100 Kg. of grapes per load, depending on how packed
down the grapes was in the bins. In my early youth there was no other way to
carry the grapes down (or up) the chasm, in order to get to your cave and make
your wine, as all heave loads were carried on horseback so to speak.
On the way down to the caves one had to be very careful with one’s own
donkey or horse, as a fall of the donkey or horse could end in a major
disaster, and as we went down the steep main road and turned into the paths of
the chasm to reach our own cave, the paths would become smaller, so small that
we had to find and wait in a wider bay, if somebody else was coming the
opposite way, and also we had to be extremely careful when we were approaching
some places where there were sheer drops of up to ten meter below us.
But not withstanding all the dangers and hardships of this wild place,
the chasm would be crowded with people at this time of the year. People would
be everywhere, and they would be busy to all doing different tasks, all
depending on how advanced their grapes harvest or wine making would be, because
in this geographic position and also the fact that it is a hilly country the
grapes would not ripen all at the same time, but they would ripen according to
the amount of sun the vineyards receive and the altitude.
Therefore, while some people, who would have their vineyards in a lower
and sunny altitude would have already harvested their grapes and made their
wine, there would be others that would be only starting, and they would be
starting by going out with a saddled donkey to Capodaqua fountain to fetch
water, (This is a fountain which I have already mentioned above and which I
will describe to you later on) the donkey would have a pair of small casks tied
on its special saddle, which the owners would take to the fountain and fill
them with water, and then take the water to their caves for washing their vats
and casks, so they would be ready to start the harvest of their grapes. There
would be others that would have already done so, and they would have started to
harvest their grapes and bring them in, as soon as the grapes would reach their
caves they would be crushed with a Crushing Machine which would be sitting on a
large vat.
Crushing Machine and sounds in the chasm
This is a grapes crushing machine, we would set this machine on a vat, then we would empty the grapes in it and crush them by turning the handle.
Large wooden vats were used to make wine in them, they were set off the ground, so that the new wine could be collected from the bottom, by opening a purpose made hole.
The Crushing Machine was a useful devise for wine making, which was becoming affordable to the small wine maker when I was young. It was very useful because it saved a lot of hard work; because before the Crushing Machine came out all the grapes that were brought in from the vineyards had to be thrown in a vat first, then when the vat was full, all the grapes juice had to be drained out of the vat and transferred to other containers, while a man or two would go into the vat with clean bare feet, to tread over the grapes until they were all crushed, and then the grapes juice had to be transferred back into the vat to become wine, you see, the type of wine we made over there needed to be together with the husks and stems to ferment, so all that work needed to be done.
Large wooden vats were used to make wine in them, they were set off the ground, so that the new wine could be collected from the bottom, by opening a purpose made hole.
The Crushing Machine was a useful devise for wine making, which was becoming affordable to the small wine maker when I was young. It was very useful because it saved a lot of hard work; because before the Crushing Machine came out all the grapes that were brought in from the vineyards had to be thrown in a vat first, then when the vat was full, all the grapes juice had to be drained out of the vat and transferred to other containers, while a man or two would go into the vat with clean bare feet, to tread over the grapes until they were all crushed, and then the grapes juice had to be transferred back into the vat to become wine, you see, the type of wine we made over there needed to be together with the husks and stems to ferment, so all that work needed to be done.
Anyhow, when the Vat would become full of crushed grapes juice together
with the husks and stems, it would be left to ferment for a week or so, during
that time somebody would be checking on the progress of the wine, and once a
day would be pushing down into the new wine the husks and stems that have
arisen to the top, so that they will all ferment together until the new wine is
ready. When the fermentation stops, then the new wine would be ready to be
transferred into a clean sealed wine-cask. The large and already cleaned wine
casks, which is a must to open up and clean them up as soon as they become
empty during the year, at this time they must be rinsed out and resealed to
take in the new wine. It usually will take an expert to reseal them properly,
as they must be watertight to keep to new wine in without leaking. Now the
Cooper who is the expert to do this job is called to reseal the wine-casks, and
he would be very busy indeed at this time of the year. Of course there are some
of the owners who felt confident enough to reseal the wine-casks, since they
have seen the Cooper doing it so many times before, and therefore they felt
that they did not require help from the Cooper, that is if the wine-casks were
not too large and they would be in good conditions.
I would like to point out now that at this time of the year, the Cooper
who is the expert that builds and fixes wine-casks is very busy indeed; but the
poor guy during the whole year has not been doing much work, if he was lucky he
could have done some work at a steady pace with his skew-axe during the year,
like carving seasoned oak-tree-wood to make some new casks, or to fix and
replace a rotten peace to the old wine-casks or vats, or just doing odd jobs in
order to earn a living: but now being grapes harvest and wine making time he is
very busy indeed, because there are a lot of people that require his expertise
at this time.
The resealing of the wine-casks is/was a very noisy job; and since at
this time of the year there would be always a few people doing it at the same time,
because it is grapes harvest time and wine making time and it lasts only a few
weeks, as a child I felt that the sound that they made was very peculiar but
pleasant to me, and as a child I would even stop playing and listen to it for a
while, since the acoustic of the chasm made the sound very interesting to me:
The noise that they made when they struck with the hammer on the cask
iron-hoops in order to tighten and reseal the casks run like this: The hammer
would start the echo going when it hits the iron-hoop, and that sound will
reverberate within the wine-cask itself, then within the cave and within the
chasm in a very close chain reaction, which sounds like a very long continuous
sound very much like a large bell, which starts with a high steel sound and
ends with a low wooden sound.
It would usually be nice to be in the chasm at this time of the year,
because during this time of the year there would be lots of people coming and
going all day long, and they would be doing all sorts of activities in wine
making, now most of these people would know each other, and being a friendly
country place they usually would greet each other’s and exchange a few friendly
words, most likely about their progress of their grapes harvest and wine
making.
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The wine press and its crew
The wine press and its crew
In the end the wine would be stored in large wooden casks
The wine press and its crew
And last of all of these activities there was also the mechanical wine-press, which would be going around the chasm’s caves to press the remains of the grapes after wine making, in order to extract the last bit of wine from the husks and stems.
The wine-press could be hired complete with the crew, and the crew of
the wine-press was a very noisy lot, as they were five or six strong men, which
would be moving the wine-press from one cave to another wherever they would be
required. They were a sight to see and to hear, as they were very vociferous
while they were moving the wine-press through the narrow paths of the chasm,
and they were shouting at each other in order to overcome their difficult task:
Heave! Heave! Pull! Push! Heave! They would be shouting at each other. I
suppose they would be already a bit drunk, even though it is still early in the
morning, since they are usually offered a drink of the new wine, from the owners
when they complete a pressing job, so they would be affected from the last
drink of wine that they have had. Anyhow they would come to your cave when you
were ready, and they would set their press in front of your cave, then one or
two of them would go into the Vat to fill up containers with the dregs, and
they would pass these filled containers to the others to fill up the press, and
once that the press would be full, they would press the dregs through a system
of livers, they would go around the press pushing these levers that would be
attached to a huge steel nut on a long stem, and through these devises they
would press the dregs dry.
Then they would release the pressure and open the press to empty it of
the dry pressed dregs, and they would refill the wine press again and repeat
the operation until all the grapes remains would be squeezed dry.
Once they had finished a job, they would pack the wine-press ready to
move to the next cave, they would leave the dregs of the pressed grapes in
front of your own cave to do whatever the owner’s wanted to do with them. So
now there would be the smell of the fresh grapes’ dregs. By now the owner would
have offered them a drink of the new wine that they had pressed. He would be
almost praying them to drink, or at least to have a taste of the new wine. So
after having a drink they are ready to go.
And off they go again shouting at each other: Heave! Heave! Pull! Push!
Heave! As they move away from one cave to another cave. And so the chasm
resounds with their voices above all other people voices, and the acoustic of
the chasm which seems to help the scene makes it even greater.
And this is the way that I remember the chasm and the wine-caves at the
time when I was young. And this is the place that some of the inhabitant of
Genzano used to live a long time ago, but when I was young and even nowadays
they are only used to make their wine, or they might even be left unused and
all the wine casks and vats are rotting away; this is the new sign of the times
since everything today is changing very fast, so we might have to say goodbye
to the old times forever.
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Genzano it story
Wine making the old way
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, another article
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