Pearly Dewdrops Drop...

There are probably a number of folk out there that have a fair bit of wine knowledge but as some wise old scabby pigeon once told me “you never stop learning...” so I thought I’d share my wine experiences and knowledge with you as this week we had the Vendemmia...the Italian word used only for the harvest of grapes for wine production.

Per vendemmia si intende la raccolta delle uve da vino, in quanto nel caso delle uve da tavola si usa semplicemente il termine raccolta.

This in short is the day when the grapes are declared as ready for harvesting as they can be, the moons is in the right phase and the man from Del Monte has said  “YES”. 

At this point in time you need a crowd of folk to pick them, some clean plastic crates to put them in and a big truck to take them back to the ‘Cantina’ for processing...and just for all you wine romantics il just quash this notion right now....it’s hot, sweaty and hard graft to fill up the crates in the hot sunshine, lug them about, discarding the smelly ‘Muffa’ riddled bunches while trailing up and down the endless rows of sloping vines in a typical Tuscan vineyard.....but also it’s good fun!

muffa

(ˈmuffa) 

feminine noun

1. 1. (biancastra) mildew
   2. (verdognola) mould
   fare la muffa to go mouldy 
   avere odore di muffa to smell mouldy

Back at home we unload the crates and start the processing on the roof above the Cantina ...I may lose you here with some technological terms but try to keep up...

The bunches of grapes are tipped into the top of the ‘squishing machine’ by the ‘tipper’, a key player with strong  but steady role. The auger and rollers in the machine then miraculously separates the grapes from the stalks and spew them out into the awaiting ‘stalk bucket’. The sweet, dark grapes then fall out of the bottom of the machine and are funnelled down a hole that allows them to drop further into awaiting tanks below. As the funnel starts to get ‘bunged-up’, the responsibility then lies with the ‘stick operator’ to keep the flow going by ‘poking’

The stick operator 

 v. 1. the act of making quick or abrupt thrusts with a sharp object 

and without doubt......a role of utmost importance!

Here is the part where I explain about the ‘legs’....

Some call them the wines ‘tears’ and others link them to the quality of the wine or the signature of the alcohol content but I know that these beautiful droplets or streaks that form on the inside of the glass have a more sinister explanation...let me divulge my knowledge here...

As you savvy old wine guzzlers will know it is normal to see folk initially swilling their newly poured vino around their large crystal glasses and passing comment on the colour and complexity, the vibrant hue and the effects on the nose but then they usually delight in the interesting fact of the wines ‘legs’....so, let me explain first hand as to how a wine gets its impressive ‘legs’.

The squisher

As the bunches of newly picked grapes are tipped in to the machine, so are a variety of   grape-dwelling insects including flies, spiders, ants, earwigs and the odd centipede. All these bugs collectively have a great many legs so as they all get mashed up by the ‘squisher’ their bodily fluids combine forming a sticky visceral substance resembling pearly dewdrop drops thus giving a wine the desired and much appreciated by the discerning drinker, the ‘legs’....

Anyway, I digress...

The stalk bucket

Now with the grapes securely in the large steel vats the fermentation process can begin which is a long , uncomplicated drawn out process that has to happen before you can taste the stuff so I won’t bore with these details at this stage...you will just have to wait for perhaps another update at a later date!

"Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops" is a single by Scottish post-punk band Cocteau Twins, taken from their 1984 EP The Spangle Maker. The song was written by Cocteau Twins, and recorded at Rooster Studios in London.

https://youtu.be/s-5Xgw6d3h0