Le Sagre or festivals of Ascoli Piceno

10 August
It is the time of year when the wealth of choices for activities here is a bit overwhelming. Last night for example, you could have attended a food festival for mixed fried foods, stuffed olives, pig calves, gnocchi, polenta, and more, each in a different little town near us. That is not to mention all the concerts of the past week. Tonight is the "white night" at Ascoli when all the stores stay open until who knows when and there are concerts and activities in every plaza. The night of San Lorenzo is famously known also as the 1st night of the shooting stars from the Perseid meteor shower. Peak activity is usually on the 12th for those interested.
I attended 2 festivals last week, in Offida-Stinco di maiale and La Pasatella in Ripatransone. Each had a concert associated with the food and wine festivals with "Rosso Piceno" playing in Offida and a couple of english performers in Ripa. The Pasatella festival, for example, costs 10 euros and one is given a wine glass and a punch card which allows wine tastings from 10 wineries, who have set up a little tasting table with snacks in 10 different buildings throughout the city. I tried a sip from them all and my favorites were from our friends at Le Caniette, San Savino and Cocci Grifoni. The latter also uses our winemaker. I was a bit disappointed in the quality of wine from many of the wineries. Hopefully, we can make a wine in the top tier with luck and lots of help.
We have been full the last several weeks with just a few days now and then with a room or 2 open. Ferragosto is the 15th and almost everyone in Italy will be on vacation. We have had people recently from Holland, France, Italy and Belgium.
I sprayed the vineyard again yesterday to keep the mold under control as rain has been forecast off and on for the next week or so. Hopefully, that part of my work will be about finished for the year as the vines will eventually become dormant and it will be time to go through and cut each one down to one trunk in preparation for the training of the vine horizontally.
We are looking forward to seeing our friends Michele and Teresa and our "niece" Matilde, who are coming to visit on Wednesday for a long weekend.
The pictures are of Raffaele's cousin, Michele with a stinco, a couple of musical groups and young friends dancing the night away.
dds