Donnas (Valle d'Aosta)

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I gathered myself my first official day in Italy from my friend Suzanne's apartment, where she had graciously welcomed me the previous night with a bottle of Vintage Tunina... followed by a late night amaro tasting :)

I had only one errand to run before heading off to the Valle d'Aosta: buy a wireless card so that I would be able to access this blog (and the rest of the world) from the get-go.... a lot of good that has done so far! Alas, here I am, a week and a half later, having driven a half hour to Alba from Castagnole so that I can finally divulge what I saw and learned that day in Donnas.

First off, my cellphone was registering an hour behind, so rather than being 10 minutes late it turned out I was an HOUR and 10 minutes late! Lucky for me, Mario, Guy and Bruno were extremely nice, and so long as I agreed to jumping right into the degustazione (tasting of the Rose, Donnas normale and Donnas Napoleon) they weren't bothered the slightest.

Also lucky for me was that Guy Dalbard speaks some English - something I already knew was going to be a luxury considering the woman who met me at the airport with my car - from a French/American company, albeit - instructed me on the features of my car and all the documents I needed available completely in Italian. Welcome to Italy, eh?

But back to Donnas, we began with a little lunch at the Co-Op restaurant before heading into the vineyards. This is where realization #4 from my opening blog statement first developed: I was definitely the most bizarre person in the room as a 28-year old American girl hanging with the guys from the winery. Local eyes stared upon me with.... I'm not really sure if it was disbelief, confusion, or just plain disapprovement. Regardless, the looks were there, and I realized that while I flew solo in New York City often, it was not exactly a common sight in Italy. (As I type this in a cafe in Alba I promise you I'm the weirdest person in the room.)

Once in the vineyards the slight uncomfortableness of my situation blew off and I remembered that I was looking at what I came there to see: secret-garden-like rows of tall pergolas - as you can see by the photos, almost too tall for me to reach! The Nebbiolo (Picotendro) vines were pretty fat from the August heat though they are generally harvested in early November. Ironically, when I referenced the nebbiolo as picotendro at lunch, Bruno was in such disbelief that it became his own joke to correct anyone who referenced the grapes as nebbiolo (reminding them, "No! C'e Picotendro!) for the rest of the afternoon.

The vineyards were really quite steep - so steep that they utilized a mono-rail trolly system in some vineyards as it would be just too difficult to haul the grapes down from the vines without dumping them all over the ground. Also interesting was the number of different vinyards we visited. Since the winery is a Co-Op the grapes come from several different privately owned vinyards, yet as the president of the Co-Op (and winemaker) we were allowed to show up at any of them just to check out the quality of the grapes. (Talk about VIP!)

All in all a very pleasant visit, and Mario wouldn't let me leave without a few bottles of wine - very generous of him. Most exciting one is a 1999 Donnas - I can't wait to study a bottle with 10 years of age since it is generally released (and drank) with only 4-5 years of age!