COME BACK TO SORRENTO

Sitting at a desk overlooking our balcony, which in turn overlooks the beautiful Bay of Naples. From our balcony we have about a 120° view, and everywhere the view is stunning. On the far western horizon twinkle the lights of Capo Miseno, ancient Misenum, the port from which Pliny the Younger observed the fearsome eruption of Vesuvius, some twenty miles away, in 79 CE. Stretched out along the northern peninsula of the bay opposite us are other glittering jewels: Cuma, site of the famous Sybil at the entrance to the underworld, Posilippo, Erculano, and the queen of the Bay herself, Napoli, with her glittering lights cascading down the lower reaches of the sleeping giant. And there on the northeastern horizon, silhouetted against the sky, is the towering bulk of Vesuvio himself. Closer at hand: Pompeii, Torre Annunziato, Castellamare, and then along the Sorrentine peninsula, seemingly pasted up against the precipitous cliffs of the Monti Lattari, “Milky Mountains”, the lights of Seiano,Vico Equense, Valle della Luna, “Valley of the Moon”, Meta, and the lower suburbs of Sorrento herself. Pure magic.

If I seem to be waxing poetic here, I’ll have to ask forgiveness; I’m under the influence of the Siren Parthenope, the beautiful seductress who governs these cliffs in myth, lures sailors to destruction (and writers to purple prose) by her seductive song, and ultimately gave her name to the seductive little town. I can catch a glimpse of her statue sitting on the terrazza diagonally from the balcony.

Our hotel, the Hotel Europa Palace, is quite simply one of the nicest we’ve ever been lucky enough to stay in. It’s perched on an absolutely sheer cliff, 250’ above the sea, with a spectacular view of the Bay. Below us a small harbor shelters fishing boats, yachts, and the small hydroplanes which ferry tourists and locals to many of the islands which define the western rim of the gulf. Hey, it’s one of those places which practically compels a hick like me to sit out on the huge terazza with the love of my life and a glass of wine, prop my feet up, stare out at all that spectacular scenery, scratch my chin and say,”Weeeeeeell, wonder what the po’ folk are doin’ today?” It’s as close as Dave and Sandy will ever come to living like plutocrats. But, trust me, it’s close enough. And more.

It’s been a wonderful trip so far. First of all we had a trip over that was probably the most trouble-free we’ve ever had. I’m almost scared to brag about it for fear of jinxing the return flights: planes departed on time, connections were made with a little time to spare to grab a bite and shake the dew from our lily pad, luggage showed up in Rome in a reasonably timely fashion and without damage!

The one small problem we encountered was transferring in Munich. This was our first trip through this airport, and I’ll bet my friend Ed will attest that it has a pretty weird configuration. It’s basically a high-rise terminal, built on three levels in a long, straight series of gates, with boarding ramps that sometimes descend as much as two stories. But even at that there’s really not enough boarding space for all the flights in and out, so many departing travelers have to be bused from the terminal to planes on the tarmac, and gate numbers change with alarming speed. Our boarding passes directed us to gate 16 where an agent of Lufthansa spun us around and sent us off to find gate 65. You can do the math there, that’s quite a haul. And you can probably predict what happened when we arrived: back to gate 8, only four gates down from where we’d been at the far other end of a very long terminal. No extra charge for the impromptu tour of the lovely Munich terminal. But that’s a quibble in the scheme of things; the rest of the trip was as pleasant as 12 hours of air travel can be.

And then there are our traveling companions, a pure delight. First, we have one of the nicest, most congenial groups of students and adults we’ve ever had. These folks are so punctual, alert and organized I almost feel like we should ask them to shepherd us along. Plus they’re just darned nice, a delight to be around, to talk to. And, God love ‘em, they’re hearty eaters, something that warms ole Dave’s heart. And makes weary travelers a lot less cranky.

Then there are our local guides. Our head honcho, by earnest request, is a wonderful young man named Oshri who’s simply the most knowledgeable, charming and engaging tour director we’ve had in our many trips with students. We’ve made enough tours with this company that I suppose our request carries some weight. And he’s so good looking that Sandy is shamelessly atwitter around him. And, truth to tell, I have such a man-crush on him that I don’t much mind. Our local guide in Rome was a displaced Austrian named Heidi whom we also love for her combination of intelligence and spunk. And our guide tomorrow in Pompeii will be Massimo, again, our preference by far.

Most important from a purely personal perspective is the fact that we are traveling with a dear friend of over forty years named Carol. Carol is a master gardener, of both the kitchen and horticultural variety, as well as a talented artist and decorator. It’s such a pleasure to experience again through her keen eye all these incredible sights. And though I won’t intrude on Carol’s privacy by yabbering on here, I’ll let it suffice to say that I’m also honoring a promise I made two years ago which I consider nothing less than a sacred trust.

I’m nodding here, and we have a busy day tomorrow what with Pompeii, Capri and Sorrento all three, so I’ll catch you up on some of our fun in ‘Bella Roma’ a bit later. I have an appointment with a cozy bed and some delightfully cool Sorrentine night air, filled with the scents of jasmine, oleander and the salty waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

HOW TO WRITE A BOOK

Our last adventure in Italy was memorable for any number of reasons, not the least of which was a number of archaeological and/or culinary adventures. Two separate trips to Pompeii where we had the luxury of taking our time. The group tours are great but hurried, plus teenagers have a hard time concentrating on archaeology for more than about three hours, especially in brutal heat. Three trips to Paestum, one for the archaeological remains, two others for leisurely tours of the fantastic museum, accompanied by the two best docents in all of southern Italy in the persons of Fabio and Fernando. Plus trips to other sites too numerous to mention. And then there were my favorites, the ‘and/or’s’, modern analogs of ancient food processes: artisinal breadmaking with wood-fired ovens, three different cheesemaking operations , winemaking (oh God, the lab work was brutal!). Well, you get the picture.

This trip will have its share of such frivolity, unquestionably. I’m particularly eager to see Herculaneum, the archaeological twin of Pompeii which is so much less frequently visited but is equally important for reasons to be discussed later. But the primary goal this trip is to do some hard-core writing on a book on Roman wine. I’m well aware there are those brilliant minds who crank out works of staggering genius in remarkable bouts of sheer inspiration. I, unfortunately, am not that guy. I’m a plodder. First off, much as it pains me to say it, I just don’t have the genius to be inspired. Secondly, I discovered years ago that plodding is my most effective modus operandi, as we say in the Latin trade. No false modesty here, God blessed me with a good if not great intellect. But in a doctoral program in classical philology at one of the country’s premier public ivies, you quickly discover that you’re stacked up against some brilliant intellects and that you just ain’t one of them. But if you’re lucky like me you also discover that brilliance is no substitute for dogged persistence and an indefatigable work ethic. I entered Carolina in a year when some 420 candidates applied to the grad program in my area, 16 were accepted, 8 of us showed up...and every one of the geniuses busted out. One lasted exactly two weeks, one experienced a delusional phase and had to be hospitalized in the psych ward and ultimately had to drop out to save his sanity, one (perhaps the most brilliant) discovered he preferred investing his time at a local watering hole to slogging through Latin and Greek and eventually followed his wife to an academic appointment at Notre Dame where he worked for years as a lowly instructor and never, to my knowledge, finished even the formal classwork for his degree. You get the picture.

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the whole doctoral process is the number of candidates who do complete all their coursework, all those brutal comprehensive tests you are subjected to (we had one we called the ‘Trivial Pursuit Exam’ where you could be asked about any element of classical culture from the 16th century BCE to the 8th CE, including works of classical authors whose works are no longer extant but are only mentioned by other authors or by authors who mention other authors), design and have approved a proposal for a doctoral dissertation...and then don’t complete their degree. They’re what are called ABDs, ‘All But Dissertation’, and, incredibly, some 60 % of all ABDs in American universities never complete their degrees! Actually, only two of the seven in my program completed the degree, and we were the two least brilliant but most sedulous people in the program. The other three who remained enrolled simply floundered.

Fortunately, I’m also not that guy. I never dared say it to my classmates, but I actually enjoyed the dissertation process. I suspected long before I came to Carolina that I would. I could almost say that I knew it as a senior in high school. Some of you remember that awful rite of passage, the senior research paper, complete with those horrendous hand-typed footnotes with all the arcane rules of punctuation and without the blessings of a word processor. You really haven’t lived until you type, on an old-fashioned typewriter, a whole page of text, reach the last line, and discover a typo that can’t be corrected with White-Out, and have to type the whole bloody thing again. What fun! But, you know, I chose a really interesting topic, I thoroughly enjoyed doing the research and writing processes, and aced that puppy.

But a ten-page research paper is not the same as a two hundred-page dissertation. One of the reasons so many ABDs lose it is because departmental faculty basically congratulate you on an interesting proposal and then say, effectively, “Now, go write a book! And good luck with that!” No pointers on how you go about that, mind you, just a pat on the back and, scoot! you’re out the door and on your own. Under those circumstances, you can imagine that being a plodder is a real blessing; all we plodders know to do is just write one page at a time. Right up front I decided if I could fill three pages of manuscript on a 13” legal pad per day, then I’d have done OK. And that’s what I did. Every day. Sitting on the deck of our little house in Parkwood, just as I’m sitting on my deck right now.

Fortunately, I received some priceless advice during the course of my program which had absolutely nothing to do with academics, at least not directly. One came compliments of Professor Kenneth Reckford, a brilliant and perennially popular teacher as well as one of the most prolific writers in a department filled with prolific scholars. We had these seminars our first year of grad school where each of the senior professors would do his little schtick and give some words of advice. I remember Professor Reckford’s little gem as if it were yesterday: “Sometimes the most productive thing in the world you can do is...nothing.” Professor Reckford encouraged us all to take time out to have a life, to enjoy our family and friends, to regain perspective, to let the batteries recharge. As if I needed that message reinforced, Sandy and I later made a trip to the local kiddie museum here in Durham and as we made our way through an old caboose which had been retired to the grounds so the kiddies could run amok inside, there we found, sitting in the cupola with his grandson, none other than Professor Reckford, enthusiastically pulling on a cord and making “Woo-woo!” noises with reckless abandon.

I discovered early on in the dissertation process that I could only effectively write for about 3 hours a day, and that early in the morning, and so I made it a rule to start promptly at 8:30 a.m., write till 11:00 and then quit, before I became weary of the process and while my mind was still buzzing with the day’s thoughts. Then I could spend the rest of the day researching bib and doing the hours of legwork in the library that all good research requires, even in this time of computer access and powerful search engines. A full day was about six hours, and then I was free to noodle, enjoy my beautiful daughter, go for a bike ride, and still have time to cook for the weary Sandy back from school. Hey, who wouldn’t enjoy a six-hour worday? And, wouldn’t you know, nine months and 250 pages later, though still only half way through the proposed project, my advisors said, “Enough, that’s a creditable piece of work, let’s publish it and get you out the door!” I was the first one through the program by a year.

That was right in line with the second priceless bit of advice I got, this time courtesy of a television interview with the famous film director Stanley Kubrick, who said, “A feature length film is never really completed, it’s just finished.” Kubrick was talking about one of his most famous films, I’ve forgotten which, and he revealed that the crew had ultimately shot 42 miles of footage. Yep, you read that right, 42 miles. That’s about 80 hours of footage before editing. Imagine turning that into a three-hour feature. And yet Kubrick couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling that the work was incomplete, but the producers finally called a halt. And the final cut went on to garner several Academy Award nominations.

It’s the same with a book, I fear. There is literally an unlimited amount of scholarship that impinges in one way or another on your topic. Scholarly leads spread out like a huge web in all directions, one strand leading to another, which in turn leads you off in a different direction, so that at times you wind up off in some scholarly cul-de-sac wondering how in the world you wound up in a place so far from home. The last book took no less than eight years from conception to birth, and no one knows better than I how inadequate it still is in so many ways. But we do the best we can and move on. My mentor at Chapel Hill used to say that if you can’t be brilliant, you can at least make a good list. The book on food was anything but brilliant, but I’m dead sure it is solid scholarship and will be useful to other minds that are brilliant. The current effort is now aborning for four years and I’ve pretty much called it on the research. Friends ask how close I am to finishing and I never quite know how to answer. Three of a projected seven chapters are written, two are thoroughly proofed and camera-ready, one unwritten is virgin territory for me and will be a challenge to write, and two are such familiar territory from the previous book that they’ll practically write themselves. So how ‘completed’ is that? Forty percent? Sixty? I’ll leave it to you to decide.

When I was in the intial stages of writing the previous opus and was asked by a student how long I anticipated the whole project taking, I gave him a figure which turned out to be wildly optimistic but which struck him as a virtual eternity. “Do you realize how old you’ll be in five years when you finish it?” he asked incredulously. To which I could only reply, “Yeah, and do you know how old I’ll be in five years if I don’t finish it? The same age!”

How long till I finish this one? More importantly, will I finish the darned thing before I shuffle off this mortal coil? Don’t know. But I’m gonna just keep plodding along and see what happens. And if there’s a more heavenly place on earth than Agropoli to do my plodding, I can’t imagine where it is.

TWICE IN A LIFETIME

T minus two days till D-day. D as in, departure for Italy. And once again I’m in that state of subliminal exhiliration that doesn’t quite keep me up at night—Sandy and I both are so exhausted from a year of teaching that falling asleep is no problem, it’s the opposite that’s an issue. —but in the wee hours of the morning I’ll start thinking about beautiful Italy and all the incredible memories I have and the anticipation of good times to come...and I’m wired for the rest of the night. From 3:30 on, I’m bug-eyed and grinning.

In an earlier blog I spoke of last summer as a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ chance for us. A little background for anyone who didn’t follow our trip last year. Several years ago at a conference in Italy I met a wonderful young man named Fabio Astone who, when he heard I was working on a book on ancient Roman viticulture and viniculture and needed to spend time in Italy to see some of the archaeology of Roman wine, offered me the use of an apartment in a beautiful little coastal town on the Bay of Salerno called Agropoli. For as long as I cared to stay there. Rent-free! Needless to say I was skeptical that such a generous offer would ever work out, but absolutely thrilled at the prospect. But as the summer approached and all the cards fell neatly into place, travel arrangements made, itinerary planned, logistics clarified...with each passing day our excitement grew. Now, Fabio had cautioned that the apartment was ‘quite basic’, but needless to say we would have been thrilled to sleep in an outhouse under such conditions. In the event we discovered that the apartment was on the ground floor of the Astones’ villa on the outskirts of Agropoli and was absolutely gorgeous. Nothing fancy, you understand, but beautifully decorated, nicely appointed and eminently comfortable. Plus it came with the most luxurious of amenities, proximity to the Astones themselves, easily the most gracious people with whom God ever graced the planet. Add to that the fact that my intellectual soulmate and brother, Professor Fernando La Greca of the University of Salerno, lived about two miles away, and you can perhaps imagine that Dave was in heaven. Feel free to check the archives of this blog if you have any doubt of that.

By the end of the summer we were all fast friends, not only with Fabio and Fernando, but with Fabio's parents, Rolando and Filomena, as well as Fabio’s beautiful, charming girlfriend Katiuscea. Sandy and I have discussed the trip endlessly afterwards and both agree that despite longing for our kids and grandson, it was quite simply the best summer of our lives. The night before departure we were all tearful as we said our goodbyes (we were scheduled to leave at five am), a sadness made more poignant by the fact that lurking in the backs of our minds was the notion we might never see each other again. Once in a lifetime indeed.

But sometimes God gives us second chances, as often as not completely undeserved. The Astones had begged us to return the next summer, and of course we said we would. Sandy and I thought they were perfectly sincere, but asking a guest for a return visit is a universal social amenity, perhaps to be discounted as ‘one of those things’. Plus, who knew what obstacles might intrude in the interval? To name but one, in an earlier blog I alluded to the fact that our health has been ridiculously good for the last, what, ten years? But that we had enough exposure to death, disability and illness among family and friends of our cohort to realize that that could change at any minute. Look, we’re not spring chickens, let’s face it. To reinforce that fact, we’ve watched a dear, warm, generous, beloved friend battle cancer for over a year now. Thankfully she is through with chemo and increasingly able to enjoy life. Sandy’s sister, Suzanne, was not so fortunate. After a long and courageous struggle with colon cancer, Suzanne finally succumbed this past winter. Meanwhile, Dave and Sandy just keep plugging along like two little Energizer bunnies. Grunting and groaning, mind you. Thank God for Alleve. And for our commitment to good food and exercise.

Then there were the logistics of the trip. Fabio’s grandparents had thought of coming from Brazil for a summer visit, and naturally that meant the apartment would not be available. No problem, Fernando insisted, we’ll just find you another place to live. But how realistic is that for two public school teachers paying a king’s ransom in out-of-state tuition? But in the event, the senior Astones decided to postpone the visit till the fall, and the apartment was available after all!

The upshot is that we will be taking a group of students and adults to central Italy for nine days, after which we will drive to Agropoli and spend several more weeks with our Italian ‘family’. And we’d love for you to come along for the ride if you’re so inclined.

AN ITALIAN ACADEMIC

On a sunny Wednesday, my friend Fernando picked me up at the apartment bright and early. This time we weren’t headed out on some archaeological or culinary adventure, we were headed for Fernando’s academic base at the University of Salerno. We had two missions. First, Fernando needed to return galley proofs to his friend, Roberto Pellecchia, who has recently published a wonderful new book, Beaches, Coves and Hamlets of the Cilento Coast, absolutely indispensable if you plan to vacation in this area. Roberto is a medical doctor from Salerno whose passion is photography and the history and lore of his beloved adopted region. Our second mission was more pedestrian; Fernando had kindly offered to give me access to the bibliographical resources of his university. It’s rather shocking in this age of PDF files and on-line journals, but there is still a vast if shrinking amount of excellent scholarship published in Italian that is simply not readily available in the U.S., even at world-class research libraries such as we have at UNC and NCSU.

The University of Salerno is a name to conjure with. This was one of the most famous of all the original Medieval and Renaissance universities, with a history that stretches back to antiquity. The city itself derives from the Samnite-Etruscan trade outpost of Ima, which was superseded by the Roman military outpost of Salernum. As its military function faded with the pacification of southern Italy in the second century BCE, Salernum reasserted its importance as a center of trade, connecting Rome with the South along the Via Popilia and Via Annia. In the Late Empire, under the reorganization of Diocletian, it became the administrative hub for the southern states of Lucania and Bruttium. And during the troubled times of the barbarian invasions, Salerno fared relatively well since its strategic importance was so obvious. It was an especially important Lombard outpost under Arechi II, who vastly improved the fortifications and adorned the city with a number of public works.

The University itself was the heir to a much older medical school at the Greek/Roman city of Elia/Velia, about 70 miles further south along the Cilento coast. This was the famous Eleatic school of medicine and philosophy, home of such renowned scholars as Parmenides, where any number of famous Romans such as Cicero, Horace, even the emperor Augustus came to receive medical advice and enjoy the delights of the region.

The Schola Medica Salernitana reached the height of its glory between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, particularly after an African monk named Constantine immigrated to the region and reintroduced many critical medical and philosophic texts which had been lost in the West but had fortunately been translated into Arabic before the early Christians did their bigoted utmost to destroy ancient learning. Some of the Greek works of Galen and Aristotle, for example, are known to us today only because Constantine translated them into Medieval Latin. What a long, strange trip those manuscripts have had!

The University eventually declined, as the Salernitans sided with first one and then another losing political faction. Eventually most of the precious medical library was transferred to Naples and the university there began to eclipse that at Salerno.

Today the University is thriving and again has a medical faculty with a sterling reputation. But like many American universities it struggles to find room to grow; the old facility in the Medieval part of the city is entirely too small for a medical school, much less one of the most important universities in southern Italy, with some 43,000 students. Further, it along with a great deal of the Old City was heavily damaged by bombardment during the British-American invasion of the area in 1943. Today the two main campuses of the University are located in small towns several miles from the city, Fisciano and Baronissi.

It was to Fisciano that we were headed. We met Roberto at a local cafe, exchanged pleasantries and galley proofs and enjoyed a quick espresso, then drove the short distance to the University. Fernando had bagged one of the most prized perks of any academic, a great parking spot, so it was a short stroll to the building which houses his faculty, a beautiful, modern facility built, along with the rest of this campus, in 1988. The ground floor housed a student center with coffee/snack bar serving indifferent food at inflated prices; some things are universal, I suppose. Fernando’s office was on the third floor, a small cubicle which he shares with a colleague. Not even enough room for a bookshelf! Even when I served as the ‘mule’ for the Classics Department at UNC Greensboro, I had more shelf space. But in Europe everything is more crowded, even office space.

On the other hand, Fernando had the one essential for any contemporary academic, a blazing fast computer, and he sat and downloaded site after site where on-line Italian journals and books were accessible. I have enough bibliography at my fingertips now to keep me busy for several months at least! We made our way down a floor to the departmental library to retrieve an obscure book on Roman wine vessels which had probably not been looked at in years, and after humbly submitting our request to a stern departmental secretary, were allowed to take it to make photocopies. Another universal: officious academic clerical staff.

We headed over to the Bibliotheca by way of an exterior stairway with a spectacular view of Vesuvius looming on the northern horizon; all Fernando need do for inspiration, I suppose, is take a quick break on the stairway. We strolled past an avant-garde outdoor sculpture gallery and the equally avant-garde school of architecture, as well as an outdoor amphitheater being set up for a performance. The library itself is as modern in architecture as it is Byzantine in its cataloguing; parts of the classical collection were housed in four different areas on three different floors, and the shelving system seemed almost totally arbitrary to a novice like me. Thank God for the good old Library of Congress system! Then there was the ‘secret’ collection housed in a locked room which we needed to access. I had visions of the racy Raccolta Pornografica at the National Museum of Naples, recently opened to the public without permission from your local priest and now, predictably, the most popular part of this otherwise incredible collection. But, no, it was just more books in the classics collection, so we retrieved our racy tome on winemaking in ancient Egypt and returned the key to the stern librarians at the desk, who eyed us with considerable misgivings. Egyptian viticulture indeed!

Later we made photocopies of a number of articles and books which were not available on-line. Altogether a very productive morning for me.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the morning, however, was just comparing the life of an American and Italian academic, something Fernando and I have done periodically over the course of our friendship. Many things are the same, as you would expect, but others are quite different. For example, Fernando is classified as a ricercatore, a ‘researcher’ on the faculty of the Science of Antiquity, seemingly a plum job to an American academic for whom time away from teaching duties to do research is the be-all and end-all of academic life. But, no, it seems that here the teaching posts mark you as BPOC. So Fernando is actually on the lower echelon of the faculty pecking order.

Which is just weird, since Fernando is an incredibly prolific scholar. Look, I can’t pretend to be objective here, I am so fond of the guy, but by any measurable standard Fernando is a publishing dynamo. He tells me he has published more than anyone else at the University, and his CV certainly suggests that is true. And yet, I have the distinct feeling he is not that much appreciated by the powers that be.

So, why not? Well, first, I suspect, there’s the matter of academic politics. You’ve all heard the old joke, no doubt:

Q: Why are academic politics so vicious?

A: Because there’s so little at stake.

Fernando is probably the least equipped person I know to play the political games that promote you up the system. He is quiet, thoughtful, polite, kind, sensitive...in short he is one of the most genteel persons I’ve ever known, a uomo bravissimo, as his Italian friends describe him.

But then there’s the system itself, which can only be described, again, as Byzantine. In the Italian system, regardless of merit, there are only so many upper-level positions available or ever will be and, as Fernando bluntly says, unless the ones in those positions cooperate and croak, there’s just not much room for advancement.

Then there’s the whole weird system of academic affiliation. I haven’t taught in any part of the UNC system for twelve years now, but when I gave my talk last year on Roman foods, that was still my academic affiliation. I felt almost like a fraud. In contrast, my friend Elisa, who acted as mediator at the talk and who has taught at the University of Milan for some eight years now, asked if she could list them as her affiliation. Answer? Absolutely not! She finally listed the University of Texas Institute of Classical Archaeology, for whom she had been a research assistant several years before, and the head of that institute, highly esteemed in this country, was delighted to have her do so, she is so well regarded. Weird.

And then there is the whole system of exams, which I don’t even pretend to understand. Fernando tells me he recently was called upon to administer an exam for a young man who had never taken a single course in the department but wanted to teach at the high school level in the area of ancient history. Part of the exam was an oral component and the young man was allowed to choose a topic on which he could expound for a few minutes. “I think I’ll speak on the Crusades!” Needless to say he was asked to come back later, after he could at least define what constitutes ‘ancient’.

Unquestionably the most bizarre example of the Byzantine nature of Italian exams also involves my friend Elisa and became something of an international cause celebré in academic circles. It seems that doctoral exams are given only every eight years or so in Italy, and, as luck would have it, the exam for which Elisa was eligible was to be given on the day she was due to deliver her first child. Naturally she asked if she could have a slight variation in the schedule, perhaps a day in advance of, or after the scheduled date, if she went into labor on the due date. Once again, absolutely not! And, predictably, Elisa went into labor on the night before the exam. And so, at 10 am the next day, she dragged herself from her hospital bed, still sedated, schlepped over to the university, and, predictably, flunked her exam. So now she gets to wait another eight years before she will be given the grand privilege of being formally associated with the university for which she has worked creditably for 16 years and by whom she has been treated like dirt.

The American academic system is far from perfect, but compared to that, it’s absolute heaven.

LA SERENISSIMA

As if we needed any such lesson, the travel gods recently let us know just how fickle they are and how they love to entertain themselves at our expense. The Romans said it best: “The gods use us as footballs.” But a seasoned traveler must learn to put a brave face on it and wait patiently for better times. If you do, from time to time the travel gods will reward you in ways you never expected.

We were scheduled to leave Agropoli for home on Tuesday, but the schedule was tight. We were due to fly out of Naples airport at 8:50 am to make a connecting flight in Venice for the States. Understand, the last transatlantic flight of the day from Venice leaves at 11:35 am, and that’s the one we were booked on. So at 5:15 am, our wonderful friend Fabio roused himself with the roosters and took us to the Agropoli train station. We arrived by train in Naples a bit early, quickly found a taxi, begged the driver to get us to the airport as quickly as he could safely do so (Naples cab drivers are notorious for taking, let us say, the scenic route), and our friendly, efficient driver had us there in good order. That’s when the troubles began.

The plane, as so often, had originated elsewhere. It seems there was a missing passenger from the flight which had preceded ours but his luggage was accounted for. In this age of terrorist threats, that’s enough to raise a red flag, and airport security, out of an abundance of caution, delayed the flight until they could account for the missing traveler and make sure there was no threat. No argument from us, but as the minutes rolled by and we heard absolutely nothing from Alitalia, we were panicky. Finally we decided to book another route at our own expense, one which had us make a very tight connection in Rome before heading to Venice. It’s been a month since we’ve seen our daughter, and we were anxious to be home.

We landed in Rome ten minutes late, literally sprinted through boarding to make the connector, enjoyed a quick whiz in the plane’s W.C., took our seats...and waited...and waited...and waited. It seems something was wrong with the baggage routing system for the whole airport, and we were waiting for the luggage to board the plane! As the clock made its way inexorably toward 10:15 am with agonizing speed, our chances of making it home on schedule faded into the mists of the Mediterranean. Oy!

OK, it’s not the worst possible fate, we’ll stay in Venice for the night and have a more relaxed commute the next morning. The people at US Air were as nice as they could be, but after 20 minutes of bad Muzak, we learned there was no way to fly US Air the next day and the other option, an Alitalia flight, would set us back $1,600 and there was no guarantee of a connector in Philadelphia to RDU. But if we agreed to wait until Thursday they could make the switch gratis and guarantee a flight from Philly. We sadly deferred our homecoming with Amy and took the only logical option.

Meanwhile, the flight to Venice was uneventful after we finally took off, but in Venice we had no hotel room at the height of the season in one of the top tourist destinations in the world. And there was no wi-fi in the airport, so little hope of booking a room ourselves. Fortunately I found a very nice young man who worked for Turkish Airlines and, when I inquired about possible help in the airport with booking a room, he volunteered to help himself and fired up his laptop. “Hmm, nothing available here...or here...or here! How much did you say you’d be willing to spend? No, they have one for 480 euros per night, but nothing close to your budget. Let’s try away from Venice, maybe Chioggia, it’s only 30 km away.” My panic rose as I considered the distinct possibility of spending two days sleeping in the Venice airport or renting a car and driving back to Agropoli just to find a place to sleep.

Luckily Sandy was also on the job, and the travel gods decided to smile on us. At the other end of the airport was an office for just such knuckleheads as we, arriving in Venice without hotel reservations. When we finally made it to the head of the line, a very polite, soft spoken gentleman asked what our price range was, if the Lido, the barrier island that faces Venice proper, would be acceptable...and if we’d like a view of the lagoon! Not even five minutes later we had a room for $180 per night, guaranteed by our 20% down payment right there at his office, and were out the door to the water bus terminal. The whole thing happened so fast after two hours of agonized wait for my kind young friend to dither, completely over his head but still trying to help a stranded American, that I almost had whiplash.

What is it about Venice that’s so unique? In a word, everything. Venice is like no other world city I know, with the possible exception of Amsterdam, because transport within the city is exclusively by foot or water. No cars! Nada! It’s hard for an American, addicted as we are to the things, to adjust to such a radically different system. But enormously fun to try. Example: twice when we’ve taken tour groups to the city, we’ve had a bit of free time to wander around and explore without the students, and I’ve always wanted to see Santa Maria della Salute, that crazy-looking rotunda church katty-cornered across the grand canal from St. Marks. It’s just so totally over the top with its curlicue pedimental decorations and saints sprouting from the domed roof like God’s own turnip patch. And twice I’ve tried to get there by foot and run out of time. The streets of Venice are tortuous to say the least. Meanwhile, right there in my wallet was a water bus pass which would have gotten me there in five minutes, for free, and I never even thought of the possibility, I’m such a lubber!

The reason for Venice’s unique watery location, as so often in Italy, has its roots in human misery. It is a moot point whether there was ever a mainland Venetia, capitol city of the Veneti, the ethnic group of this region of Italy, today the Veneto. Perhaps it lies under the important Roman town of Altinum, 10 km north, which was gradually abandoned, subsumed by the lagoon and only recently revealed in large part through the magic of near-infrared aerial photography. What we know for sure is that, as Germanic tribes, Huns and eventually the fearsome Lombards invaded northern Italy in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries CE, wreaking destruction in their wake, many of the Veneti retreated to a number of small islands in the lagoon here and began systematically building up the marshy land by driving one wooden piling after another into the ooze and piling mud on top, thereby creating larger, higher islands and deeper, navigable canals between them. Because Venice lies close to the mouth of the Adige River which originates in the Alps, these timbers could be sent downstream from Alpine forests in their thousands. I once read an estimate of the number of pilings now incorporated into the 117 small islands that collectively make up Venice, and though I regret I have lost the figure, it was in the hundreds of thousands. Because the mud and salt of the lagoon provide an anaerobic environment for the pilings, the little critters that eat wood cannot do their thing and the pilings will last essentially forever.

The Venice we know and love today is largely a product of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when its location at the head of the Adriatic made it a great sea power, controlling the fabulously lucrative trade with the Byzantine Empire, thence back to Venice and thence either overland or by sea to all parts of central Europe. The only other sea power that seriously threatened ‘La Serenissima’ was Genoa, on the Ligurian coast, with whom Venice was almost continuously at war. The sea trade even survived the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The real decline came only with the discovery of the New World and control of Atlantic trade by Spain and Portugal. Needless to say, these were two other sea powers.

So the first thing you need to do on your trip to Venice is resolve to use the water as much as possible. That starts at the airport, where you wheel your luggage down to a staging area where you can opt for a vaporetto, the cigarette-boat water taxis which can get you to all points in the lagoon within about 30 minutes, but are rather expensive, or for a water bus, a much larger version of the vaporetti, operated by Alilaguna, slower because they are larger and make local stops, but very cheap. If you opt for the latter as we did, buy the round-trip tickets for $25 and you’re set for the trip back to the airport as well.

Where to stay? For my money, there’s no debate: Lido. You can stay on the islands of Venice proper and pay three to five times as much for a tiny room, or go out to this beach resort community, 10 minutes from San Marco by water bus, and enjoy a nice room in a quiet place for a reasonable price. And dabble your feet in the Adriatic after a hard day of touring; the Adriatic beaches are a five-minute walk away.

And by pure, blind luck, you may get a room like ours. We were booked into the Hotel Villa Laguna, right on the lagoon, with a stunning view of Venice. The hotel itself is described as a Hapsburg villa, but it reminds me of nothing so much as a large Cape Cod, complete with gables instead of the typical Venetian hip roofs, and with the Venetian lagoon where the Cape should be. The gracious concierge, Fabio, explained that the hotel had been completely renovated, inside and out, some three years ago, with ambitions to make this three-star a four-star. I have no doubt they will succeed; this was quite simply one of the two best hotels I’ve ever stayed in. The decor is exquisite, classic Venetian style, the dining facilities are gorgeous, the rooms are all set up as suites, with a nice sitting area, a large closet for luggage, a small kitchenette, a nicely appointed bath, and a bedroom, all decorated to the hilt. And our suite was one of the two in the hotel with small balconies, so that we could sit and watch the passing parade of boats and ships and gawk at that incredible city on the horizon. Hey, at this point I would have been content with a bug-infested mattress and a commode, functionality optional, so you can imagine what a happy camper I was.

But be warned, the suites are beautiful, but not necessarily quiet. The hotel is located on one of the main channels through the lagoon, and is right next to the main docking facility for the public transport company, ACTV, that is, Act V, pronounced Ahkt Voo, and the passing parade is noisy. A small price to pay, as far as I’m concerned. Fortunately most of the action dies down around 12 at night, and if all else fails you can shut all the windows and use the very efficient air-conditioning system. But then you’ll miss the fun!

Tuesday night we used to lick our wounds and recoup from the stress of the day. We ate at a local Lido restaurant, enjoying two pasta dishes that incorporated the local seafood for which Venetian cuisine is famous, and a mezzo of local white wine. And slept like the dead afterwards. Wednesday morning we were lazy, enjoying good Italian coffee in the room, a late breakfast in the breakfast room, also overlooking the lagoon, and one of the world’s true luxuries, morning naps. In the afternoon, off to the city for some desultory touring. ACTV makes it easy for you; you can buy tickets for unlimited travel on all water buses, plus the land buses that operate on Lido, for 6 hours, 12 hours, one day, three days, and so on. Best bargain anywhere. After disembarking at San Marco, we hopped on a local water bus, found comfortable seats facing the left side, and cruised all the way up the Grand Canal and then back again, seeing the incredible palazzi on first one side of the canal and then the other and cruising under some of the most beautiful bridges, such as the Rialto. Hey, if you just must do that gondola thing, go for it...once. Then take the water bus so you can really see the city. On the way back we hopped off at the Academia stop, across the canal from San Marco, and made our way through the labyrinthine streets to Salute.

Wandering the streets of Venice is another education in itself; almost surely you will nowhere else experience anything so much like the ancient city of Rome as here. Oh, sure, the Romans bequeathed the grid system of streets to the West, but guess which city did NOT have a grid system? Yep, Mater Roma herself. Add to that the chance of fires, building collapses, and garbage and human waste being emptied from the chamber pots of upper apartments (Roman apartment blocks were up to five stories tall), and a trip along a narrow Roman street must have been an adventure. I was reminded of that several years ago when a group of us were wandering through a narrow Venetian lane when suddenly a nonna on the third floor tossed the contents of her mop bucket out the window. They landed with a satisfying ‘Sploosh!’ right on the head of a Brit about five yards ahead of us, who proceeded to initiate a long string of blistering epithets of a caliber to make any self-respecting sailor envious. Meanwhile, Nonna paid not the slightest attention. Perfect! You can’t even BUY stuff like this! And only in Venice.

I’m happy to say we made it to Salute sans slop-bucket contents and found the inside as beautiful in its austerity as the outside is hideously ugly in its excess. For me, that’s just so...Venetian: another surprise around every twisting turn of the footpath or canal.

RISTORANTE CASARECCIA

Shortly after we arrived in Agropoli our hosts, the Astones, took us to a fine local restaurant for a taste of traditional Cilentane foods. It proved to be a memorable meal.

The restaurant was the Ristorante Casareccia, located between Capaccio Scalo and Capaccio Vechio, Capaccio-on-the-Road and Old Capaccio. Another paired community, one up on the flanks of the mountains and the other down in the lowlands. This is almost the rule in the Cilento, not the exception. The reasons are both practical and strategic.

One practical consideration is simply that transport is so much easier by water in a pre-industrial context, and the Cilento is richly blessed with natural harbors and bays, so it was perfectly natural for little coastal communities to develop all along the Tyrrhenian coast, as far back as the Neolithic and perhaps even earlier in some cases. There was a thriving commercial system here as early as the Early Bronze Age, and that trade only intensified with the coming of classical Greek colonies such as Poseidonia, modern Paestum, and Elia, today’s Velia.

But, as mentioned earlier, the soils of the alluvial plains such as those of the Calore and Sele river regions in this area were simply too dense for early farmers to plow, equipped as they were with the simple ard plow. So arable farming was restricted to the lower foothills of the mountains where soils were light and easily turned but retained enough moisture to carry crops through the dry Mediterranean summers.

And there may have been another reason as well, one which goes back to the very beginnings of the Neolithic Revolution. Archaeological research conducted in central Italy in the last 20 years suggests that there was an early phase of proto-agriculture when ‘crops’ were not so much planted as nurtured in their natural environments, and these incidental ‘gardens’ were supplemented with the herding of cattle such as sheep and goats. Add to that a rich supply of meat garnered from hunting, just as had been done in the Paleolithic, especially of the various indigenous deer in this area. But deer, like their domesticated cousins the sheep and goat, are migratory in central Italy, following the summer fodder into the uplands where moisture is more plentiful. In the realm of domesticated cattle it’s called transhumance, the practice of transferring cattle from winter lowland pasturage to summer uplands. Think of Heidi, following the cows into the upper Alps and returning in the fall with wagons laden with beautiful Swiss cheeses. Again and again, even from late Paleolithic, we see summer hunting/herding communities along drove roads leading down to winter coastal communities.

The strategic reason for the upland communities is simply for protection against marauders. It is difficult for an American to understand how the tragic history of the Mezzogiorno may have molded in subtle but profound ways the psyche of the modern southern Italian. But once your native land has been invaded, there is a psychic scar that lasts for generations. Now imagine being invaded repeatedly, with all the attendant murder, rape, pillage, and destruction. If my calculations are correct, Agropoli has seen some 23 changes of regime, so to speak, most of them instigated by violence. Some of the Medieval villages in this area are almost unbelievably inaccessible, so much so that many are being abandoned as people look for easier access to jobs, good highways, entertainment, you name it. Fernando has a friend who has bought a whole Medieval village on the slopes of Mt. Soprano and is turning it into a tourist destination!

Capaccio Scalo has a much more prosaic history; it simply developed as a node along the new highway built back in the early twentieth century and is therefore essentially a modern town.

At the restaurant we were warmly greeted by Antonio, the proprietor, so warmly, in fact, that I thought our hosts must be hard-core restaurant patrons. Later we discovered that Antonio, Antonello or Nello as he is called by family, is the son of Filomena’s cousin. And a cousin in southern Italy is every bit as welcome as in the American South.

We began our repast with plates of antipasti consisting of the famous cheeses of the area, namely, little bocconcini of mozzarella, and the aged caciocavallo. They were accompanied by the most impossibly red and sweet little tomatoes I have ever seen. Then there was aqua sale, literally ‘salted water’, which was a revelation. These were little chunks of the local bread baked in a wood-fired oven, but in this case then sliced into slabs about 2” in thickness, placed on a sheet pan on their sides and baked again, a true biscotto. Our hosts explained that these were quickly dipped in water (the time depends on how old and dry the bread is, so it’s an empirical process, as I discovered when I tried my hand), broken into chunks, salted generously, then sprinkled with herbs, perfectly ripe halved grape tomatoes and doused with the best olive oil. Absolutely simple, and absolutely delicious.

Next came plates of the local salumi, or cured pork products, for which this region has been famous for at least two thousand years: prosciutto crudo, what we would call a country ham, but not one of the fake ones you see today but a real hard-cured ham that requires no refrigeration. This one was cured in a facility behind the restaurant! It was thinly sliced and accompanied by slices of a delicious, spicy soprasatta.

Next we had our contorni, or vegetable course, a reminder that Italians love veggies so much that they either make them the whole focus of a meal or at least give them the stage to themselves so they can be appreciated as something more than second fiddle to a hunk of meat. We had a ragu of carrots, artichokes, celery and sweet peppers, cooked as simply as possible and slightly bathed in good olive oil. Along with these we had a melange of zucchini and eggplants, gently sautéed to the tender-crunchy stage and again dressed very simply. Probably my favorite part of the meal.

For the pasta course we were offered three local favorites, a ravioli made from handmade sheet pasta and stuffed with the local goat-milk ‘ricotta’, which is actually a full-fat farmer’s cheese. These were sauced with a simple marinara. Along with these we had fusilli con ragu. The fusilli in this case are long, hollow noodles hand-shapped by rolling strips of sheet pasta around a tiny dowel and then zipping them off. It’s apparently a real art; our friend Katiuscia says her mom can whip them out in no time, but hers are total disasters. These were sauced with a slow-simmered ragu, and thanks to Fabio I have some inside dope on this. When we went to Castelcivita to the Grotto there, Fabio had the clerk at the office of the tourist attraction make up two batches of fusilli and presented one to me. He explained that the secret of the ragu was choosing the best ingredients and then simmering low and slow, preferably for at least three hours. The absolute best ingredients are a bit of onion from the Astones’ garden, sweated in olive oil from the Astones’ orchards, to which a fairly coarse dice of a cut of beef has been added, but one with lots of connective tissue which slowly releases its unctuous gelatins. Into these should be stirred a bottle of Mama Filomena’s canned tomatoes, seasoned with herbs, salt and pepper. Turn the gas as low as it will go, add a cup of water and be patient. Your patience will be richly rewarded.

The third pasta was cavatelli, but not the sort we think of here, the extruded semolina pasta, but rather little gnocchi of soft wheat flour, hand crafted and sauced with a luscious cheese sauce and medallions of eggplant. It’s darned hard to make potato gnocchi that don’t have the texture of silly putty, but I can’t imagine how gentle one must be to create these soft little pillows of goodness.

For the meat course the restaurant pulled out all the stops and served fresh pork sausages, poultry and beef all three, à la Romans. It was delicious, all roasted over open coals and having that grilled flavor, but we were all a bit jaded by now and I think Filomena’s beloved dogs probably enjoyed the most benefit. These were served with a fresh salad and French fries.

The only one who opted for dessert with her caffé was a certain anonymous little porker, and this was a simple frozen cup. Italians don’t like desserts after a meal, preferring sweets as a mid-morning or late-afternoon spuntina (snack) to accompany the powerful espresso coffee that carries them through to the next meal.

With our meal we enjoyed three wines, a white Falanghina from northern Campania, an Aglianico of no particular distinction but still quite good, and, I presume in honor of Cousin Rolando who loves the Piemontese grapes, a Ciloso. The Aglianico had a delicious flavor but almost no discernible aroma, the Ciloso just the opposite, with lots of berry in the nose but a rough astringency on the palate. But the really delicious thing about Italian restaurant wines is that they are affordable. What a luxury to be able to enjoy with your loved ones a whole bottle of wine, without stinting! In my opinion, American restaurateurs who habitually insist on a 700% to 1000% markup on wines are being incredibly shortsighted.

The meal had been accompanied by sports news from a large-screen television mounted on the wall, something I usually despise, but really very entertaining in this case. We started our meal about an hour before the beginning of Italy’s World Cup match with Poland, and the whole restaurant was fixated on the panel of sportscasters, garrulously bloviating away just like their American cousins. Think Carolina-Duke basketball extrapolated to a national level. It was fun to watch all the earnest discussion, none of which we understood, but which clearly engaged the passions of the locals. By the time the match started the restaurant was practically deserted; everybody had skeedaddled home so they could scream blissfully at the screen in private. But Nello provided plenty of animation and local color for us as the Italian team did its usual stint at underachieving.

Altogether a fun and delicious afternoon and a wonderful chance to meet and get to know our host family in the best and most intimate way of all, namely, by sharing with them the sacred pleasure of food.

NATURAL WINE

Today I visited two winemaking operations, worlds apart in their size and scope but both sharing a passion for natural wine.

This morning Fernando and I made our way to the Azienda Marino, nestled in the hills south of Agropoli, where we met Rafaele Marino, the proprietor and winemaker of this mid-sized operation. Rafaele was out in the vineyards on the tractor, so we strolled around the grounds of the villa as we waited for him to return. The Mariinos (this is another family operation) operate an agriturismo on the property, a beautiful villa with a huge veranda in front and rooms facing the vineyards with an oblique vista of Agropoli and the sea in the distance. At the back of the villa is a walled cortile or courtyard around which are clustered work areas such as the winery and tasting room. All immaculate and pretty. It’s easy to see that this family shares the same esthetic sensibilities, combined with a powerful work ethic, that we have seen so often before in Italy.

About ten minutes later we were greeted by Rafaele himself, a man who appears to be in his late forties/early fifties with movie star good looks: blue eyes, bronzed skin, carefully styled black hair graying at the temples, perfect white teeth, and looking, in his navy shorts and white polo, like he just returned from Monaco instead of the tractor. I was glad Sandy had opted for shopping this time around; she’s been dropping strong hints that she’s going to dump me and move to Italy and Rafaele could have tipped the scales. I, on the other hand, was most impressed by the fact that he looked so cool and collected. It’s been hot here in the South of late, and our faithful intermittent brezze (sea breezes) and venticelli (mountain breezes) have deserted us as well. With our northern-European ancestry, we’ve been sweating like race horses. I’m reminded of an old girlfriend who insisted that girls don’t sweat, they glisten. Rafaele glistened. I sweated.

Rafaele took us first to part of the vineyard where he showed us vines of Aglianico and explained that he specializes in the ‘historic’ vines of the region such as Aglianico, Fiano, Greco di Tufo and Piedirosso. I’ve commented elsewhere about the chances of these being the ‘original’ vines of Italy, so I won’t be a curmudgeon, but what I can say with absolute confidence is that several of these grapes have enormous potential, given the right amount of respect. Take this for what it’s worth, since I have a mediocre palate, sad to say, but the Fiano grape (white wine) and the Aglianico grape (red) in my opinion are undiscovered jewels. And they’re still reasonably priced! There’s even an Aglianico that is my favorite everyday quaff which is sold for about $5 by Trader Joe’s. Spring for a couple more bucks and I’d almost guarantee you’ll never go back to Two Buck Chuck again.

As we made our way to the winery Rafaele explained his philosophy of winemaking: leave the grapes and young wines alone and let them show you what they can do, unless they obviously need some help. Case in point, the use of copper sulfate. Coastal Cilento has the same problem for viticulture as we have in North Carolina: too much humidity at key points in the summer. And molds and mildews such as oidium and gray mold just love a warm, humid place to eat grape leaves. So Rafaele sprays, but only when it’s obviously necessary, not on a preset, biweekly schedule as so often in the US, even in industrial wineries in arid California. And he lets the grapes leaven themselves until he sees they’re in trouble, in which case he’ll use a cultured yeast. None of this foolishness of blasting the must with sulfites and starting from a ‘dead’ must. As a teacher and a parent , I’ve always thought that kids thrive on a bit of benign neglect; let ‘em show you what they’re capable of doing, even if you fear they’re overreaching. But be there for backup when they get in trouble. That seems like a good way to raise wines as well, so Rafaele was preaching to the choir.

Next we toured the winery, a spacious facility where we saw the staging area for the entry of the grapes, the crusher/de-stemmer, the ‘press’, in this case one of the bladder presses so popular in modern winemaking. If it sounds a bit distasteful, don’t be alarmed; it’s just a large cylindrical metal canister with an inflatable rubber ‘balloon’ inside which squeezes the crushed gapes against the interior sides of the cylinder to extract the must. Not quite a gentle as the naked human foot, still the absolute best way to crush grapes, but a world gentler than the hydraulic presses which are cheaper and faster.

We made our way to the fermentation room with its large, stainless steel vats which can be temperature controlled, so very critical for producing good wines in this hot environment. Then to the bottling room where the Marinos have a complete bottling line. Finally to the tasting room where Rafaele told us more of his philosophy and met his lovely wife and handsome son. With his parents, this kid had no chance of turning out ugly. Rafaele explained that he has difficulty selling his wines in the commercial venues in the Cilento, so he sells in Canada and through the family’s restaurant in Agropoli. Sad to say, this didn’t surprise me at this point. Only the day before I had gone to a local wine shop to buy an excellent Fiano Sandy and I had enjoyed at a local restaurant. The clerk practically sneered, “This wine you will find at the supermarket!” Geez, lady, I thought, I didn’t ask for sterco on a crocciante, it’s a great little wine! So I asked for any other local Fianos. “At the supermarket, signore!”

Well, I’m not going to be cowed into buying something I don’t want, so off I went to the supermarket, where I found... not one single Cilentane wine! Not one! There was a Fiano from northern Campania which I’ve had before; it’s crap. Sadly, it appears that wine snobbery is as rampant in southern Italy as in America.

This afternoon I experienced Rolando’s vino della casa, and I’ll warn you in advance there is no way I can be an objective observer here, I have so much admiration and affection for him. Rolando is our host. He showed me his vineyard, consisting of some 8 rows of grapes. These too were the traditional grapes, not of the Cilento but of Piemonte! Rolando and Filomena lived in Torino for many years and when they retired to Agropoli he brought slips of the famous Piedmontese grapes Nebbiolo, Barbera, and Arnese. Rolando’s grapes, like Rolando himself had earlier done, are thriving in their adopted home. I was struck by the tiny little berries of these pretty clusters, a reminder that most of the flavor and aroma in wine derives from the skins, so the really noble wine grapes all have small berries: more skin per ounce of juice.

Rolando’s grapes are completely organic, not even any copper sulfate. I suppose in a bad year for molds he simply makes the best wine he can and hopes for a better season next year.

His ‘winery’ is a workroom on the ground level of the villa, katty-cornered from our apartment, which is naturally cooled by the earth itself. Rolando uses a hand-cranked crusher-destemmer, then throws the must into two large plastic containers, perhaps five feet tall and about the same in diameter at the top. They undergo the primary stage of fermentation here, when fermentation is so vigorous there is no need for a closed container. Then they go into stainless-steel cylinders, the elfin cousins of the huge ones at Marino, and in this case not mechanically cooled. The vintage takes place in October, and by February the wine is ready to be racked off the lees into glass carboys which line a shelf along one wall, where they slowly finish their aging. Rolando bottles by hand, of course, and uses simple plastic ‘corks’, cheaper and more hygienic.

We tasted one of Rolando wines, a Barbera. Rolando explained that he uses about 80% Barbera grapes and 20% white Arnese. For balance and aroma? No, the Arnese have some residual sugar and they are what gives the wine its fizz. Rolando uses a specially designed plastic stopper which accepts a wire ‘cage’ just like the cork ones do on commercial sparklers. The wine is not really fizzy, spumante as the Italians say, but more a frizzante, just a pleasant bit of sparkle. There is also a bit of residual sweetness. Not my favorite style of wine, but still delicious; the aroma and fruitiness of the Barbera grapes were all there, the wine was perfectly balanced and ‘healthy’. Plus, the companionship was a great vintage.

Rolando explained that he likes to drink his wines young, often after only six months or so, like Beaujolais Nouveaux. Why not aged wines? Because, unless they are truly great vintages of truly great grapes, the winemaker is practically compelled to sulfur his wines to keep them stable, and that is no longer a natural product. It’s the same for his olive oil, which Rolando claims is good medicine as well as fine food. Hard to argue with that. The best pasta sauce I’ve ever tasted is a tablespoon of Rolando’s olive oil.

It was interesting that both Rafaele and Rolando emphasized with considerable zeal that natural wine will make you strong and keep you strong. Hard to argue with that either; Rolando is a robust 73 who works around the villa every day. And once again I was struck by the recurrent theme: technology can make products more rapidly and more cheaply, but it does not necessarily make them better.