LA CHIENA

Sunday after we had a chance to recover a bit from our long trip, from the rigors of the tour, and from the excitement of just being here, Fernando came by to visit, to give me a list of possible ‘adventures’ for this trip, and to invite us to ‘La Chiena’. Through the rigors of our bad Italian we were able to deduce that this was a festa in a local town that was analogous to the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. Only this was the ‘Running of the Water,’ when torrents of water were released from two small rivers in the town into the streets and the populace raced ahead of it to escape the coming flood. Fernando mentioned there was the problem of proper footwear—what to wear to your local Chiena?—and gestured with his hand to mid-thigh and said that he would, for the first time in our experience, be wearing short pants. How could we resist all that spectacle?

So early the next day Fernando came by and picked up the Sleepyheads and we were off to Campagna. No, not the region of Campagna, in which Agropoli is located. Nor the plain south of Rome which is such an agricultural treasure for the city (the Italian word campagna simply refers to a plain; think of camping in the fields). This was the little town of Campagna, about five miles northeast of Eboli, just the other side of the A-3 autostrada. We headed up Highway 18, cutting across country before we reached Battipaglia, to the outskirts of Eboli, where we hopped on the A-3 toward Reggio for less than three miles, then took the exit and traveled north to the flanks of the Monti Picentini. Along the way Fernando pointed out a huge Palazzo at Pasana which had once belonged to one of the kings of Naples but now served as an outpost for the Italian army.

Now, whoever came up with the name of the town was seriously demented; if ever there was a place that does not qualify as a plain, Campagna is it. The town is actually located up a steep gorge formed by the confluence of two small rivers, the Tenza to the west and the Atri to the east. The rivers crash down on both sides of a rocky outcrop, and there, clinging to the triangle formed thereby is the pretty little Medieval town of Campagna. These rivers are what the Italians call torrente, torrents, swift-moving mountain streams which come crashing down the sides of precipitous gorges. In fact, we discovered that it was this geography which gave birth and life to Campagna. Campagna was a mill town. Not ‘mill’ as in ‘factory’, but ‘mill’ as in ‘water mills’. The rivers provided something all too rare in the ancient and Medieval worlds, a free and unlimited supply of power. At one time there were numerous mills for grinding wheat, for pulping olives, for sawing wood, you name it. Whatever could be done with rotary motion, you could find at Campagna.

We parked at the bottom of the town and met one of the local organizers, a stylish middle-aged woman with elaborate glasses, a huge pendant with a fake bronze bust of Minerva, and a huge purse which featured Cruella DeVille. Hey, you can’t make this stuff up! The event was sponsored by the local Rotary Club. I think of Rotary and Lion’s Clubs in America as pretty much moribund, which is a shame because they did so much charitable work when I was a kid, but they are both very much alive and kicking in Italy and do all kinds of charitable and cultural work, even publishing books. We joined with a group of Italian tourists and worked our way up through the streets of the town. Be assured that the local organizers were going to make sure we had the grand tour of the town. First we came to the church of Saints Salvatore and Antonino. This church was a parocchia, not a chiesa or basilica. I had to wiktionary that one to find out it’s a parish church, not one directly governed by a diocese. It was a pretty little local church, a nave and side aisles but no transept, statues of saints in the niches along the aisles, an elaborately gessoed and painted ceiling, handsome Doric-style columns along the aisles, a gorgeous intarsio choir loft with a small pipe organ. But the focus of worship was a Corinthian-style column which looked as if it might have been Roman in origin, about 8 feet high. We were told that legend had it that insane people were manacled and chained to this column and underwent a miraculous cure. Doubtless the most famous cure of all, though, was Saint Antonino himself, a local boy who was orphaned early in life and left, as was the custom in the old days, as a ward of the local monastery. St. Antonino was said to have done so much mischief in his early years that he got the pazzo treatment and went on to become a priest and ultimately the bishop of Sorrento, where he died and was sainted.

Next stop was the Fountain of Justice, a cute little pedestal fountain with four spigots at the cardinal points of a labrum, only one of which was still functional. But the water was delicious. Sidebar: All over Italy the water is perfectly safe to drink and it is generally absolutely delicious. My recommendation is to drink as much of it as you can. The real charm of this fountain for me was that the fountain heads were carved as Sileni, those goaty little helpers of the wine god Bacchus with their snub noses and pointed ears. Think of a chubby middle-aged Peter Pan. Next we stopped in the tiny courtyard of a local palace, the Palazzo Tercasio, pretty, but hardly an eye-popper. Next we cruised up to the town’s cathedral, the Basilica di Santa Maria della Pace, completed in 1683. It was definitely an eye-popper, but Mass was being said and so we had to admire the exterior only.

Not a problem for Dave and Fernando, the classical nerds. We were taken, single file, through a mill on the flank of the Tenza, currently under extensive reconstruction. This beauty had formerly housed both grain mills and a frantoio, an olive processing facility. At one time scholars thought that the Romans had barely discovered the concept of the water wheel as a source of power, despite the fact that the Roman architect Vitruvius gives us a detail description of just such a mill. But in the last thirty years we have come to understand that water mills were everywhere in the Roman world, even along the Tiber River in the environs of Mater Roma herself. During the siege of Rome by the Goths, the barbarians destroyed many of these mills in an attempt to starve out the Romans. The brilliant Byzantine general Belisarius simply floated water mills in the middle of the Tiber and allowed the current to turn the wheels.

But these mills were unusual, though hardly unique, in being side-shot wheels. A bit of explanation: water wheels come in three flavors, the overshot wheel familiar to many of us, where a flume directs water from some distance upstream across the top of a wheel with vanes, and the force of the water and its dead weight turn the wheel, a motion which is transferred to a spindle and ‘geared up’ with a crown-and-pinion gear to make the stones above rotate. The second configuration sends the water under the wheel to turn the wheel in the opposite direction. Slower and less powerful, since it is simply the current of the water that moves the wheel, but much simpler since it requires no flume.

And then there are those situations where the force of the water is so great that a short, closed flume directs a jet of water to the side of a turbine and thus eliminates the need to transfer the vertical rotary motion of the wheel to the horizontal rotary motion of a spindle, as well as any gearing. I’ve only seen one such mill back in the states, a beautiful if decrepit old mill out in the boonies of Greene County, Tennessee where we used to live. The facility in Campagna had three such mills in series, one of which apparently was used to process olives. You see, before olives are pressed to remove the juice, they have to be mashed up, and long before the Romans, the ancients were using rotary mills with massive vertical millstones to effect this process. There are many places even today where such mills continue to be used. But I have never before heard of one operated by a water mill.

A jaunt to the other side of the piazza led us to yet another mill, much smaller, but here part of the actual wooden turbine was still preserved, complete with its canted vanes. (Look in the background of the picture.) Dave and Fernando were in heaven.

A quick tour through the lower level of the Basilica for a nod to the Monte delli Morti, Mountain of the Dead, and we all raced up to the corso of the town to await the big event. It seems that in olden times, several of the flumes which operated such mills could be closed off and diverted to direct their powerful jets through the streets of the town. Considering the general level of sanitation of Medieval towns, this was a cheap and effective way to clean the filth from the streets. A banner would be hoisted above the town to alert the populace to the coming torrent, a signal would be given, and the flood would follow. So you can imagine our anticipation when we saw a trickle of water round a curve further up the corso and head our way. We tore off our shoes and braced ourselves for the onslaught. The trickle became a flow, the flow grew to two inches, three, four....and there it stayed! And the fun began. The good citizens of Campagna, men, women, and bimbi of all sizes and varieties, waded through the street, laughing delightedly, kicking water on friends and strangers alike, scooping up water in plastic buckets to more effectively soak their neighbors. It was hard to tell whether adults or kids were having more fun. The three of us waded up the hill to see where the water was burbling up through a large grate in the street and then slowly waded back down till we came to a local trattoria selling delicious fritters, pezelle, made with zucchini flowers, and little homemade pizza pockets, sciurilli, along with a refreshing nonalcoholic aperitivo containing fresh fruit.

So, go on with yo bad sef about that Pamplona business.  Dave and Sandy have faced the terrifying onslaught of the mighty waters of the Tenza and lived to tell the tale! Were we disappointed that our excursion didn’t involve a bit more danger? Let me put it this way. Where but in Italy could they turn street-cleaning into a festival, and one fun for the whole family? “L’aqua è vita e gioia” says the flyer for the festival. “Water is life and joy.” Indeed it is. I do have one small regret; I’m convinced that if the good citizens could have generated just two more inches of water, we could have experienced the world’s longest water slide. And coasted half way home to Agropoli.

AGAINST ALL ODDS

First morning back in Agropoli. Against all odds. I’m a bit reluctant even to mention the fact, fearing the Fates, who have been so generous, will misinterpret my words as hubris and send us a big dose of retribution. No, dear Fates, only profoundest gratitude. Back in 2010, when we first came to this beautiful place to live with these incredible people, I opined that it was a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ experience. Every time we’ve been back since—ten now—we have told each other several times, “We need to really savor every minute of this, because it will probably be the last time.” But not yet, it seems! Despite some serious obstacles.

Once again ‘our’ little apartment at the Villa Astone was not available, still under reconstruction after some water damage from leaking pipes. It seems that things were progressing nicely till late February when the two Ukrainian workers doing the work understandably left to be with their families and countrymen during these tragic times. And Italy is having some of the same issues with labor supply as we are, despite an eye-popping unemployment rate among young people here. Their replacement workers in skilled labor tend to come from eastern Europe, their unskilled, especially agricultural, labor from North Africa. So procuring replacements for our Ukrainians is a problem. Thus we were very disappointed; the apartment we lived in at the B&B Miglino last fall was, we assumed, only possible because we were here off-season in this little beach resort. And we left it at that. But our dear friends here had no such reservations—were even a bit hurt that we didn’t ask, though they now understand why. As Katiuscia Miglino told Sandy, they consider us family, and money not remotely the main consideration. So here we are! Tough journey for two our ages, but we handled it with some aplomb, I must say. Once again we stopped over in New York for a couple of days to break up the travel and, more importantly, to see daughter Amy and fiancé Vito. And a special treat, Vito’s parents, Kelly and Mario, are there from home in Venezuela and we had a wonderful dinner with them and beautiful daughter Melanie. On Wednesday we were scheduled to depart JFK at 4:15pm and as usual gave ourselves extra time to arrive there and run the gauntlet, all without a hitch. There was one comical moment at Security when the TSA agents had to deal with our braces on various joints. We kept the little metal detectors busy! ITA Air boarded in fairly good time, but then we sat. And sat. For five hours! First some sort of technical glitch with a fuel valve that finally required the combined skills of three technicians, and then—and I dreaded this because we faced the same problem with a large tour group several years ago—because there’s a fairly tight schedule for flight crews on these international flights due to strict limits on how much air time they can spend. Some years ago regulations were passed after crew fatigue was implicated in two fatal crashes. In the best case, the flight itself is eight hours, so ITA had to call in another crew and that took some time as well. Thus our 9:25pm departure.

The flight over was incredibly smooth, making our way through passport control and claiming luggage efficient, as were making our way to the train station at Fiumicino airport, buying tickets, and traveling the 30 minutes to Rome Termini, the main train station. Sweet Sandy had made all kinds of arrangements for this trip, among them reserving seats on the Freccia Rossa high-speed train from Rome to Agropoli. Which we thought was perfectly shrewd since it gave us almost three and a half hours lead time in case our flight was delayed. But sadly, 3.5 minus 5 does not yield a positive number, in either sense of the word. We checked in with a kind, helpful agent of Trenitalia to see if the ticket price could be transferred to a later train; she explained that it could not but booked us on an intercity leaving 30 minutes thereafter, a train which was not quite as speedy but still very rapid and comfortable. This glitch cost us 80€, pretty minor in the scheme of things. Three and a half hours later, dear friend Fernando La Greca, my twin by another mother, met us at the Agropoli station with ecstatic hugs and much laughter and took us north to Paestum, ten minutes away, where we claimed our little Lancia Ypsilon, the other godsend which is making this stay practicable, oddly enough. We have rented through Hertz for years and of late specifically through Hertz Rome at Fiumicino, spending the night at a comfortable little B&B in nearby Ostia and driving south the next day after resting tired old bodies. Typically for two months we pay about 1600€. But this year the cheapest rate we could get on two months’ rental from Hertz was about 7,000€, totally beyond our budget. And pure gouging, in my opinion. Our cute little flivver from here locally is not cheap by any stretch, but it’s a lot more reasonable than that. Hence the train ride south.

So we made our way back from Paestum to Agropoli and to the little frazione of Moio and up the northern flank of Monte Tresino to Asparagus Lane for joyful, excited reunions with the Miglinos and a tour of our new quarters, if we so choose. To explain, there are two apartments here on the third floor of this large villa, and this fall we stayed in the eastern one since its sister was being furnished at the time. Now the western one is complete and Katiuscia and brother Ivan were proud and happy to show it to us. It is a stunner, beautifully appointed with gorgeous views from the front and side terraces. What a luxury to have such an option! Both apartments are beautiful and comfortable, and we will be overjoyed to stay in either, naturally, plus there are some minor advantages and disadvantages to each, so for a few days we’ll just settle into the Magpie’s Nest, as I hereby christen the new apartment—we have a garrulous magpie couple nesting in the oak tree in front, plus there are two old bipedal magpies temporarily nesting behind and happily clacking away—and then decide where to live.

Speaking of which, today is a day joyfully devoted to some very mundane matters such as groceries, wi-fi, cash, cappucini, cornetti (our local croissants), and just allowing creaky old bodies to recuperate. And with a bit more of our inexplicable good fortune, along about Sunday we’ll start planning our first adventures in this blessed land, grazie mille a Dio.

EXPLORING LUCANIA

Back to 'work' for the team of Thurmond and Thurmond, though I'm a bit sheepish about calling it work when it's so much darned fun and we only do it for the love of it. The new project is an introductory history of the area known in antiquity as Lucania, what is today our Cilento—the southern part of Campania—and most of Basilicata to the east of us. It's also more than a little embarrassing to admit that it is only after ten years of part-time living in the Cilento that I am starting to understand something of the complex history of this place. But in my defense, that history is very complex. There have been humans or their ancestors living in this blessed spot since the dawn of man. For example, remains of Homo erectus were found in a cave along the coast at Marina di Camerota, about 40 miles south of Agropoli, and probably also in a famous inland cave about 25 miles northeast. Evidence of Neanderthal dates from some 100,000 years ago, and evidence of Homo sapiens sapiens from 35,000, about the time Neanderthal disappeared. Lots of evidence for habitation in the middle and upper Paleolithic, and by the Neolithic, about 6,000 BC, this area was widely populated in villages, practicing agriculture and sheep and goat herding, with a thriving economy based on trade in textiles and with trade links as far afield as the Aegean over on the east coast of Italy and the Aeolian Islands off the north coast of Sicily. Then there were the Oenotrians, an Italic people who spoke a language distantly related to Latin, as well as Etruscan outposts and Greek colonies along the bottom of the boot and up the shin as far as the kneecap. Our Lucanians show up in the 5th century BC and flourish until the 2nd, when they were incorporated into the expanding Roman empire and pretty much cease to exist as a distinct culture.

So, obviously, that's a lot of ground to cover, much of it 'book research' to keep me out of trouble this winter. But then there are those archaeological sites and artifacts where eye-witness is absolutely essential. The upshot is that Dave and his tireless photographer have started their field trips which, with any luck, will take us to about 30 sites. We recently visited the National Archaeological Museum at Paestum, about 6 miles north of here, so Sandy could document some of the artifacts and especially the incredible frescoes with which the Lucanians of the area decorated their chamber tombs. There are a good sixty of these housed in a special collection in the museum as well as an incredible 200 plus in the depository, simply too many to display. The Lucanians ruled Paestum, the former Greek city of Poseidonia, for some 50 years, starting about 335 BC, although my buddy Fernando suggests that they should more generically be referred to as Samnites, not Lucanians, since the coastal Lucanians had been so thoroughly 'Greekified' by then. In any case the frescoes give a vivid picture of some important elements of aristocratic Lucanian life like funeral rites, hunting, warfare, gladiatorial combats, and chariot racing. Since the Lucanians left practically no literary evidence of their culture, these pictures really are worth a thousand words.

Tuesday we headed out early eastward to visit a gorgeous little town perched up on a spur of the Monti della Maddelena overlooking the Vallo di Diano, flood plain of the Tanagro River and a very important trade route to the Ionian Sea (the one south of Italy) and from there to Greece and the Near East. Little Atena Lucana was an important outpost as early as Mycenaean times, the era recounted by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey, roughly 1250 BC, and the little museum in Atena houses some precious Mycenaean artifacts that prove she had trade links far afield. Sadly, the museum, housed in an old palazzo, was being renovated and we were unable to see them, but thanks to a kind woman named Maria we were able to get some panoramic shots of the Valley. So typical: we simply excused ourselves and asked if a narrow, circuitous lane led to the castle at the highest point of the town, and 45 minutes later she had not only conducted us to the ‘castle’ (which is now little more than some reproduction crenellations) but had taken us through her Nonna’s house next door for an even better photo, had called the local priest to open a famous church there and led us there to make introductions, then called the Commune, what we call the county seat, to arrange for a delightful gent named Signore Biasco to show us the outdoor archaeology of the town. We saw the remnants of the megalithic walls of the lower town, the seven towers that encircle the upper town, and a number of inscriptions and bas reliefs from the Roman era.

Plus we had the pleasure of getting to know two incredibly kind and generous Italians who, like so many of their compatriots, are delighted to go far, far out of their way to help a couple of American vagabonds. So you can perhaps understand why I’m more than a little red-faced calling this ‘work’.

LIFE ON ASPARAGUS LANE

Well, against all odds, the old folks find themselves back in their second home and thrilled to be living ‘that other life’.

If you are new to this blog, a little background.  Eleven years ago, through the generosity of a wonderful young man named Fabio Astone, we were offered the chance to live in an apartment in the gorgeous little seaside village of Agropoli in the equally gorgeous area of southern Italy known as the Cilento while I did research for a book on ancient Roman wine.  That first summer was one of the greatest of our lives and turned into nine more visits of five weeks to two and a half months, during which time we have explored large parts of this storied area as well as neighboring Basilicata and Puglia.  We had become so besotted with the area that we had resolved to return for as long as we were physically able.

But then came Covid.  I do not wish to be insensitive, we know perfectly well how disruptive and dangerous this terrible scourge has been for the vast majority of people. We ourselves have lost two sweet souls who were extremely precious to us.  But I must be candid and admit that, in almost all but one significant way, the pandemic has had little impact on our daily lives.  We are retired teachers with a modest but dependable income and a very quiet, comfortable lifestyle.  And what with automatic deposits and bill paying, on-line shopping, incredibly efficient and cheap shipping, we have faced minimal disruptions.  We’ve even found safe ways to stay connected with our friends and family.

Our young'uns, Amy and Vito

But there was that one significant way that Covid was a complete disruption.  And that was our second life here.  I know I sound spoiled, mainly because I am spoiled, but there is also that factor of age.  One of my closest friends speaks of the years of retirement as the ‘Go Go Years’, followed by (if you are lucky) the ‘Slow Go Years’ and then the ‘No Go Years’.  I have friends of a certain age who are inveterate travelers who will recognize exactly what I mean.  If we were in our thirties, a one-year disruption in travel would be no big deal.  In your advanced years, it is.  Sandy and I are still in the Go Go Years, but we're taking nothing for granted.

So when that second Pfizer booster was made available and Italy opened its borders to Americans, it was a no-brainer for Dave and Sandy.  We learned from our buddy, Fernando La Greca, that the Astones were doing a major house renovation and therefore the apartment was unavailable, a real disappointment since we love Filo and Rolando so much, but Fabio and his wife Katiuscia, equally dear to us, live in a large B&B owned by her family, and, since we are here off-season (Agropoli is a tourist resort in the summer), they offered the use of one of the apartments out on the flanks of Monte Tresino, and Sandy went into overdrive booking flights, rental car, rooms for the night in Rome, etc. And off we went.

Travel to a European country is not quite as easy as it once was, but I can assure you it is no major burden either, if you are inclined to make the jump as well.  Italy, which is now 72% fully vaccinated among the eligible and has a transmission rate well under 5%, has a ‘Green Pass’ which attests your vaccination status and is required to enter bars, restaurants, museums, theaters—pretty much anywhere besides food suppliers and medical establishments, but our white CDC cards serve as well.  We were also required to provide evidence of a negative rapid antigen test within 72 hours of boarding the plane, but we made a two-day stop in New York in order to visit daughter Amy and her significant other, Vito, and there are mobile testing sites on many major streets all around the city.  On her advice, we ducked into one on our walk to Amy’s apartment from our hotel; the youngsters operating it helped us fill out the on-line forms, gave us the swab tests, which are not remotely as unpleasant as those ‘tickle-your-brain’ jobs, and early the next morning we received QR codes which led us to our negative results.  Finally, the EU requires a locator form for contact tracing purposes, but we were able to fill it out well in advance and, again, the form generated a QR code which the airlines could access if there was any doubt.  Speaking of whom, the airlines now suggest a three-hour advance arrival time at the airport, and I concur; there is nothing more calming for frazzled nerves than knowing you’ve built extra time into the schedule to deal with inevitable glitches.  But I have to confess that our check-in was remarkably painless since we had all our documents readily accessible.  Heck, we even had ample time for a snack and a celebratory glass of wine before departure.

Our favorite restaurant in Fiumicino

The flight over was relatively quick (a bit over seven hours) and smooth, until we bumped into the remnants of a huge cyclone over southern France and thumped our way over the Italian Alps and down to Rome.  Nothing traumatic, you understand, beyond a bit of spilled coffee.

At Leonardo da Vinci, customs and baggage claim were smooth as silk, as was retrieving our rental car (can’t recommend Hertz Gold Card too highly).  She’s a cute little Fiat 500L, whom we have dubbed Orca due to her black and white coloring.  We had booked a room at our favorite B&B in Fiumicino, Domus Lina, and it was a skip and a hop there.  In former years we would have driven the four hours south on the day of arrival, but old bodies have to pace themselves, we have learned, and the fact that we had difficulty staying awake until bedtime—wakefulness in a time zone six hours advanced is a sine qua non to avoid jet lag—proved that it was a wise choice.  

One of their offerings, spaghetti all'astice

A light dinner of pasta at a cute local restaurant that we love, Zi Pina, and then nine glorious hours of deep sleep.  The next day we had breakfast and the luxury of lollygagging till midmorning to avoid rush-hour Rome traffic, and then we were off to the Mezzogiorno.  The trip south was delightful, traffic light on the A-3 (a miracle) though with its share of overly exuberant Italian drivers, and even the SS 18 south from Battipaglia to Agropoli was lightly traveled.  Off we went at the Agropoli South exit, around the southern boundary of our fair town and up the road to the little frazione of Moio, then further up the country roads to the Via degli Asparagi, “Asparagus Lane’, and to the beautiful B&B Miglino. Fabio and Katiuscia were there for hugs and to help us settle into our lovely apartment, which they have provided with everything we could possibly want (even an espresso maker!)  At 8:30 pm they called us down to their apartment and loaded us up with four different varieties of pizza.  ‘Home’ (upstairs) for pizza and then off to more delicious sleep.

This morning the sun is shining and the air azure, crisp and delightful, and in every direction there are stunning views from our terraces of Monte Tresino, the sparkling Bay of Salerno
and the Amalfi coast beyond.  This is going to be a wonderful trip.  I hope you’ll drop in for a visit often.

Views from B&B Miglino

The coast from Castellabbate, Monte Tresino in the background

Winemaking at the Outer Limits

   

     What sort of person makes wine at the outer limits, where the chances of failure are enormous, but where there's a chance, remote to be sure, to make stunning wines, not just good ones?  What sort of person plants vineyards on slopes so steep that viticulture with machines is laughable, and where the topography dictates that the pockets of land suitable for vines are so tiny that a two-hectare (7 acre) vineyard is large, so that any pretense to commercial production means you'll have tiny plots scattered about from Vietri to Agerola, a distance of 30 kilometers?  And where vineyards climb slopes so precipitous that you have to harvest by stages, because the lower vineyards are a month more mature than the upper?  And, for the love of God, what sort of nut case decides to use autochthonous cultivars that nobody outside a 30 mile radius has ever heard of and then grow them using a training system that is two millennia old?

     You'd have to be some sort of masochist, right?  And if you somehow made a success of it, you'd need to be an obsessive-compulsive, driven to the point of madness, right?  Well, no, actually you'd have to be Marisa Cuomo and Andrea Ferraoili, two of the warmest, most gracious and hospitable people you could ever hope to meet.  Who just happen to make some of Italy's most spectacular wines at Cantina Marisa Cuomo in tiny Furore, perched some 500 meters (1600') up on the slopes of the stunning Amalfi Coast.

    Once again we owe the impetus for our visit to our daughter, Amy, sommelier at Ristorante Leuca in the William Vale hotel in Brooklyn.  Amy has been gushing for years about how luscious these wines are and how we needed to make a pilgrimage to the winery to convey her respects.  After all, we're only 40 kilometers away as the crow flies.  She even bribed us with a bottle of Marisa's most delicious white, Fiorduva, when we enjoyed a spectacular Italian-themed meal with her at the restaurant last autumn.  Tempting indeed.

     The problem is that these old crows can't fly those 40 km.  But even by road it's only 70, right?  Well, yes, but 25 of those are along the coast road of the Amalfi Coast.  I've driven it three times, and it is nothing short of spectacular, perched up on jagged cliffs anywhere from 100 to 200 meters above the sparkling Bay of Salerno, with those adorable little villages clinging to the slopes and smiling in the sun.  I would encourage every adventurous traveler to drive it....once.  The problem is that the road is so contorted that unless you drive like a maniac (which many of the locals do), you're lucky to do much more than 10 mph.  That is not an exaggeration.  So driving the road is a pure rush, for about the first 30 minutes.  Thereafter, it quickly starts to pall.  And Furore is 25 miles down the pike.  You do the math.

     So, I've been a hard-core recalcitrant until this summer, when Sandy discovered that a ferry runs regularly from Agropoli to Amalfi, only 10 km from the winery, and that taxis and buses are accessible from there.  And, for the umpteenth time, we owe our dear friends Massimo Alois and Talita de Rosa at Alois Wines, who heard of our interest, called their buddies at Marisa Cuomo and arranged the logistics of a vineyard/winery tour and a tasting.

    Everything about our visit was a delight.  On a sparkling Thursday morning, we parked the car at the Port in Agropoli, bought tickets for the equivalent of $10 apiece, boarded a clean, air-conditioned ferry, and chatted with our new friend, Le, an Aussie of Vietnamese extraction who was using our little town as a point d'appui for her travels in the South.  The trip over lasted an hour and a half, but it was totally relaxing, coasting down to cute little San Marco di Castellabate, then watching the dramatic Cilento Coast recede from view to the south and the equally dramatic Amalfi Coast emerge on the north.  Andrea had offered to pick us up in Amalfi but had been called away for urgent business in Rome, but a garrulous taxi driver kept us giggling the whole way up the side of the mountain with his accounts of encounters with shady practitioners of his own profession whom he'd encountered over the years, especially in New York City.

Beautiful Amalfi

     Marisa met us at the winery with a warm smile and options for winery tour before or after our tasting.  We opted for the latter, strolled down the road to Bacco, the restaurant/hotel owned by members of the family, where we had reservations for the night.  We checked into our room, a lovely one with a private terrace and a spectacular view, then made our way up to the restaurant where Roberto, a very friendly and polished waiter/sommelier introduced us to the wine and food pairings.  First up was a crisp, mineral Furore Bianco, paired with a medley of variations on tuna.  Then another stunning white, Ravello Bianco, paired with parsleyed tagliatelle and the tiny, sweet carpet clams that are so delicious in these waters.  Then the winery's stellar white, the Fiorduva we'd had before, a composite of Fenile, Ginestra, and Ripoli grapes, none of which I'd ever heard of prior to Amy's introduction., much less tasted  This was paired with a hearty dish of baccalà (salt cod) in a classic marinara.  Most whites would wilt before a dish like this, but the Fiorduva with its unctuous glycerines and intense fruit handled it with aplomb.

Two of Marisa Cuomo's gems

Roberto, knowledgeable and friendly

Tagliatelle con vongole

Baccalà alla marinara

The flagship white, Fiorduva

     Dessert was millefiori torte and good coffee. Then it was off to the cantina where our guide was lovely Bruna, a Brazilian expat with credentials as a chemical engineer and food technologist who worked in the chocolate industry in France for several years before her gig at the winery and is now proficient in four languages.  The cantina itself is typical of the new breed in Italy (and elsewhere), with a large pneumatic press and the refrigerated stainless-steel fermentation tanks which have elevated Campanian wines to cult status among savvy oenophiles, without the cult prices   The cantina also featured a modern, completely automated bottling line.

Millefiori

     The winery dates from 1980, when Andrea, the last descendant of a family of winemakers from Furore, bought the Gran Furore Divina Costiera brand, which dates to 1942, and gave the winery to Marisa as a wedding present!  Both Marisa and Andrea were born in tiny Furore (population roughly 800), but their ambitions were international from the start.  Over the years they bought some 10 ha (25 acres) of vineyards and signed long-term contracts with growers of as many hectares again.  They now produce some 50,000 bottles per year and are the largest producer in the Costa Amalfitana DOC.  Roughly 60% of their production is white wine, featuring standard grapes like Falanghina but also wonderful, quirky little local grapes like Biancolella and the previously mentioned Fenile, Ginestra. and Ripoli  A delicious rosato, a blanc de noirs from red grapes Piedirosso and Aglianico, cannot be classified as a rosé in France because of its intense pink color—in England in the old days it would have been called a claret— but is nevertheless extremely popular there as such.  The winery's reds , Furore Rosso and Furore Rosso Riserva, come mostly from those same two delicious grapes, grown on the eastern slopes down toward Vietri.  Beautiful, soft tannins and gorgeous fruit in the nose, combined with all those baritone notes in the mouth and a medium finish.

Sandy with lovely Bruna

Vines on pergolas, above the blue Tyrrhenian

One of dozens of small, inaccessible plots, with a monorail in the left foreground

    Bruna next took us up into one of the vineyards above the winery.  On the Amalfi Coast, vines are still grown on pergolas, just as they were by the Romans and perhaps by the Greeks before them.  Clusters hang down beneath the frames where they are sheltered from the intense sun (grapes are easily sunburned, believe it or not).  I was delighted to hear that chestnut is still the standard framing material, just as it was for the Romans; chestnut is easy to work and is extremely durable and resistant to bugs.  This training system and the topography ensure that viticultural practices as well as harvest are almost exclusively by hand, and this is enormously expensive but also ensures top quality.  The next morning we had planned to walk up the road above Furore to see more of those pocket vineyards, but Marisa insisted on dropping her winery and grandma duties to drive us up, stopping periodically to show us another spectacular view of a vineyard, and even one of the little one-seater monorails that provide a tiny bit of mechanization during harvest.  Yet another feature that this viticultural area shares with Cinque Terre, up on the Ligurian coast. Then it was back to the cantina to tour the wine cellar with its ranks of French oak barriques for aging the reds.  Earlier Andrea had explained that it had taken no less than four years just to procure the permits from the otiose Italian bureaucracy, then another four to carve out the cellar from the dolomitic limestone.  Unlike cousin calcite limestone, dolomite is extremely hard even in humid environments, and houses on the ridge above the cantina meant that the cellar could not be dynamited but had to be laboriously jackhammered from the matrix.

Part of the new cellar with its French barriques

    The highlight of the trip was lunch with Marisa and Andrea on the terrace of Ristorante Bacco.  Our amuse bouche was little crostini of bread baked on premises with anchovy fillets and good olive oil, paired with a Santi Prosecco Superiore Valdobbidene.  Look, I love a cheap Prosecco as much as the next guy, but do yourself a favor and try a Conegliano-Valdobbiadene DOCG superiore sometime; I can almost guarantee you'll be wowed by its intense minerality.  Truth-in-advertising disclaimer, however:  among her other duties, Amy is New York ambassador for this DOCG, so I'm a bit biased.  Next up was the rosato with a dish of paccheri (large tubular noodles typical of this region; like ziti that overachieved) and baccalà, but in this case simply dressed with great oil, a few cherry tomatoes and parsley.  Next we had linguine with an anchovy hash, dressed with the local version of garum, the famous Roman fish sauce.  This version is made in nearby Cetara, center for anchovy fishing on the Coast, and is actually closer to Roman liquamen.  If fish sauce sounds disgusting to you, better eschew that Thai restaurant you love so much; various forms of garum are what gives many oriental cuisines that indescribable umami flavor.  In this case Andrea also proffered an aerosol spray bottle of the good stuff if we wanted a bit more mojo.  Stellar food.  This and the next dish, a simple mixed salad from the hotel's garden and a frittura of anchovies and calamari, were paired with the Furore Rosso previously described.  Next up was a sorbetto of mixed citrus (lemon, orange and kumquat) followed by figs stuffed with a local sheeps'-milk cheese and a rich almond cookie.  With these we were offered a choice of coffee or digestivi, the liqueurs, most prominently liomoncello, which are popular after-dinner drinks here.  I opted for a Nanassino made on premises from prickly-pear fruits.

The irrepressible Andrea

Warm, gracious Marisa, who just happens to make world-class wines

Lunch on the terrazza

     The food and drink were exquisite, as you can tell from Sandy's photos, but the real treat was sharing a leisurely repast with this dynamic couple, Andrea the ebullient enthusiast, quick-witted and full of fun, a natural marketing genius, like our friends Massimo and Talita; and Marisa, quieter and intense, but equally kind and gracious.  I may be wrong, but I suspect it is that intensity and focus which manifest in the vineyard and the winery to create world-class wines.  Almost three hours later, we were introduced to the kitchen staff and bade Marisa good-bye before Andrea drove us back down to Amalfi, stopping several times to point out another precarious vineyard and once to show us a new winery recently given the official imprimatur and where new reds will be vinified going forward.

Marisa Cuomo's rosato

Paccheri con baccalà

Linguini con alici

Mixed salad and frittura di mare

Prickly pear liqueur

 Andrea was perhaps  proudest of a little plot of only 1.2 hectares down near the coast where he experiments with no fewer than 42 autochthonous grape varieties! Back in Amalfi, Andrea parked near the ticket booths for the many ferries that operate in the Bay, and, discovering that we had an unexpected 45 minutes before we sailed, was positively jubilant that he had time to show us a bit of his beloved second town.  As we strolled up through the town along the corso, we lost count of the people of every shape and description who greeted him, often with a hearty hug and a bit of banter.  In that brief span of time Andrea treated us to sodas at a local bar where the owner is a dear friend and the barrista, a beautiful young woman of Ukrainian extraction, is his adopted granddaughter, then insisted on a mini-cone of gelato from the shop of a childhood buddy who is now surgeon to the local celebs.  Michele and Andrea insisted they were pegged as high school students as 'the two least likely to succeed', but I'm not sure I'm buying that.  Then up to a local ceramics shop where the proprietor took us to the basement to show us a Roman nympheum, a dining room equipped with cascading fountains, which had been discovered in the course of recent construction there and meticulously excavated. Back at the port, Andrea insisted on escorting us to our embarkation, where he discovered yet another friend, this one the ship's bos'n, who, discovering we were friends of Andrea, insisted on carrying our bag on board. Needless to say, it was obvious how beloved Andrea is in Amalfi.

    So, these two highly successful people are exceptionally gracious, an anomaly, right?  Nope.  In our travels we have been lucky enough to come to know several dozen purveyors of fine food, from wine to bread to cheese to olive oil, truly exceptional people who have chosen the path of excellence in an area where mediocrity is so often rewarded.  And, to a one, they have been kind and generous with their time and talents, not from any expectation of recompense from two knucklehead Americans, but from the sheer joy of sharing their passion for excellence with us.  As often as not it has taken them years to be rewarded monetarily for that passion, but they have never lost the joy of the adventure.  And, to a one, they are genuinely happy people.  Trite as it may sound 40 years after Joseph Campbell encouraged us to 'follow our passion', I think the dictum is just as valid as ever.  Pursuing excellence, however you may define it, and sharing your passion for it with others, is the key to a truly happy and fulfilling life.