Before I begin my run down of the "intense" days events, feel free to browse this album. It has some handy captions :)
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| Morgex, La Salle & Arvier (Valle d'Aosta) |
That picture above is how my day started as I exited my agroturismo in La Salle. Though it was absolutely breathtaking, it was also a little chilly, so I thought it best to dress for cool weather... bad idea!
After arriving at the Co-Op winery to meet Gianluca we were off to visit many of the small vinyards in both Morgex and La Salle to collect grape samples for testing at the lab later that afternoon. Similarly to Donnas, Caves du Vin Blanc de Morgex & La Salle is also a co-op winery as the area has many small vinyards that couldn't really support their own operation, so they all combine their grapes together and then pick someone (like Gianluca, and the previous day Mario Dalbard) to run the show. Later, at the lab, we would test the sugar grams, the pH and, well, I'm not really sure what the final test was... When everything's delivered in Italian you're bound to miss something!
By the time it reached 10am I was dripping with sweat under a blazing sun amidst rows of short pergolas in Morgex. Since the town of Morgex is at such a high altitude the grapes benefit from being closer to the ground so that during the cool nights they can be kept warm by the heat collected in the soil during the day. (This drastic temperature difference is also what helps keep the wines dry, crisp, and brightly acidic.)
After observing tall pergolas the previous day (which one would obviously pick from below), I couln't help but wonder how one goes about picking grapes from these lower ones that hit around the waist. I also couldn't help but notice that most of the people who were working in these vinyards were short and stout... if that's not a case of survival of the fittest, then I don't know what is!
After Morgex we headed into La Salle, which is when things started to get a little steeper - especially towards the top. The vines actually reached even higher in La Salle than Morgex - check it!
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| From Morgex, La Salle & Arvier (Valle d'Aosta) |
However, neither of these towns vineyards would prepare me for what I would face that afternoon in Arvier. Gianluca named his Arvier wines L'Enfer d'Arvier which translates to "the hell/inferno" of Arvier. Let me tell you, it's not just the heat that lent these vineyards their name - though that was pretty unbearable, too. The higher we climbed the more I had to utilize my hands to cling to the ground - which wasn't such a far reach as it was becoming increasingly more vertical. In the album there is a picture of old vineyards that were abandoned over time - I can completely understand why! How one could work these vineyards, much less haul the grapes down without overturning the bins completely escapes me. The monorail system in Donnas could DEFINITELY be of some help.
- To my friends and colleagues at dell'anima (read:Clinton): I hope you all take this to heart as you sell bottle after bottle of Enfer d'Arvier wines. By no means should you stop - the poor souls who torture themselves by keeping these vines deserve a hearty return for their masocistic efforts. But please know the toil and effort that go into this wine even existing!
Much to my dismay, when we reached (what seemed to be) the top of the vineyards we kept right on climbing - Gianluca wanted to show me something he seemed really excited about. What turned into a 40 minute hike would have been totally fine if I had been prepared, but I was totally unprepared and desperately craving some water. All I could think was that whatever was waiting at the top of this mountain - a pot of gold, I hoped - had better be pretty damn exciting to warrent this spurr-of-the-moment mountail hike. At one point Gianluca asked me (after watching me pant, no doubt), if I worked out. My answer: "No. Lavoro in piedi." (No. I work on my feet.) Maybe that's a lame excuse to the rest of the healthy, fit, sport playing world, but I promise you that the majority of these people don't stand a good 12 hours a day.
In the end there was no pot of gold, but instead a very cool little cantina atop a mountain that dated back to medieval times. Gianluca mentioned trying to re-open it to the public... to that I suggest implementing a gondola system. He made up for it, though, by dropping me off at a spa at the end of the day where I spent an hour wading in natural spring pools then a good 20 minutes in some waterfall massage room. Not my typical place, but very much appreciated after a long day of steep mountains and Italian comprehension!
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