Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Time once again for the passito wine and more olive picking






29 Ottobre
Yesterday, we spent the morning picking another 5 olive trees to make 200 kg which is the minimum we need to take to the frantoio for pressing. The afternoon was spent pressing our passito grapes which you remember were harvested a couple of months back and then tied to the cables to dry. This year was a bit wetter and cooler than the year before, but we didn't have any moldy grapes and the liquid which exited the press was like caramel. Last year was honey, so we should have a bit of variation between the 2007 and 2008. We only managed to squeeze about 27 liters of juice, enough to fill one container of 26 liters and leave some leftover for cooking, ice cream or some other concoction.
Raffaele is off to the champagne region of france for the long weekend and I will be here slowly preparing for our much anticipated visit by the students of UNISG who will be exploring the Marche. the second week of November. I plan to tag along as permitted and perhaps learn some new things myself.
The pictures show the reharvested grapes, Raffaele loading the torchio (press) and firing it up and the exiting juice with our fancy filtering colander in evidence.
dds

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