9/11 at the office of immigration

12 Settembre
I had to wait a day to post this one as yesterday I was just too incazzato. I started my effort to become legal here in Italy in May 2007 and thought surely in March in Chicago, all would be taken care of at last. I applied for a self-employed visa and in their wisdom, they granted me an elective residence visa. Fine, finally a visa, even one which doesn't allow me to make any money in Italy.... no problem!! I am spending! But NO, I was asked to go to the Questura on Sep 11 for what I thought would be the presentation of my Permit of stay, But NO, they wanted to tell me that with this elective residency visa, I was not allowed to be an owner in any business in Italy, even one which loses money. What a morning!; 2 hours in a room full of muslims and chinese and east europeans on 9/11. While I am in the waiting area, I hear the immigration officer asking the chinese why they are lying to her and also an east european who was told he has to leave the country. It is an interesting place and I wish them all well! At the end, I couldn't even get my permit of stay, as they are only handed out on wednesdays!
This is all the consulate in Chicago's fault, as I told them I was a business owner and sent them many emails and faxes trying to fit all their regulations for the lavoro autonomo visa. They never responded and to top off everything, when I visited their office in Chicago, they explained 1. I had 12 minutes for my visit. 2. If I didn't have everything required, I would lose my money and have to start over. 3. They didn't have time to answer emails! and help people out.. Did I mention, they don't answer their phone either. Oh well, back to the drawing board. I fired off new faxes and emails to the vice consul in Denver and the consulate in Chicago. We will see if they respond.
Today, i hoed 6 rows of vines after serving our Irish guests their breakfast, then ate lunch and took Bacco to Porto d'Ascoli for a swim in the sea and a bit of fetch. I bought some supplies to bottle our red wine from last year (5 liter bottles with screw tops and a siphoning tube) and "combs" to harvest olives with in the next few days. Tomorrow, bottling and then a thorough cleaning of our stainless steel tank in prep for the 2008 red wine.
All around us, the grape harvest is visible as the white grapes and sangiovese grapes are ready for picking. Our montepulciano is a later maturing grape and so we should benefit from a little rain in the next few days followed by a few days for the grapes to mature and "undilute" a bit. We really need a bit of moisture for all our plants!
Raffaele took off for Tuscany for a couple of days of peace, so I am the "illegal" captain of our ship until tomorrow night.
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
dds

My 1st Italian wedding, harvesting the white grapes and work related injuries

9 settembre
I enjoyed attending my 1st real wedding in Italy this past weekend as Marta and Alessio tied the knot and then headed for Maui. I had been to a post wedding party before, but this was the church ceremony with a full wedding mass etc. Saturday was the most humid day we had all summer so the poor men in their wool suits suffered a bit, but all was forgotten after the 3rd prosecco. The reception was followed by a nice dinner with Banfi wines and then dancing with KC and the Sunshine band leading things off. Of course, many traditions are the same, with toasts given, everyone clamoring for Baci! (kisses between the newlyweds) throwing of the bouquet etc.
Today, I finished pruning the last olive tree. Yesterday I suffered my 1st injury of the season. I am not sure whether the music in my ipod was too "allegra" or I had drunk too much caffeine, but I exited one of the trees a bit too fast and scraped away the epidermis in a beautiful 6 inch "S" shape from my right leg. I had to recompose myself for about 5 minutes and decide whether to continue, but after the bleeding stopped, I finished another 14 trees and the last 3.5, I finished today. The olives are changing colors as you can see by the picture I enclosed and we are considering harvesting the tenere olives in the next couple of days as they are early maturing and used for the famous stuffed olives called olive ascolane.
We did harvest the white grapes yesterday and again this year tied them on the cables to dry. Hopefully, we can make a passito from this year's crop which will equal last years in quality.
Wednesday night, we are serving up a BBQ with meat from the most famous butcher in Italy, Cecchini from Tuscany and hopefully we can start a tradition here which we practiced for decades in KC where everyone brings a nice wine to match the dinner. The theme-tuscan wines of course!
I will have all the details later.
Finally, thanks to everyone for following along with my adventure. In the next day or two, I will have received my 10,000th visitor to the new life of dwight. As always, feel free to leave comments. You just need to sign in.
dwight

Divino in Vino

6 Settembre
Buon weekend a tutti.
Last night was the grand opening of Divino in Vino, our annual wine festival here in Offida which celebrates and promotes not only the local producers of Rosso Piceno, Rosso Offida, Pecorino, etc., but also wines from around the world. I started out the evening with a blind tasting and was 0/3. They offered an oxidized Cote du Rhone which I was sure was italian, because it was oxidized in that old style Chianti way. Next was a Ciliegiolo from the Maremma which was such a fruit bomb, I guessed Australia and finally, there was a Barbera d'Alba which was done in the modern style, meaning it could have been any grape variety from anywhere in the world. I guessed South America, thinking it was cleanly made quaff from there. I hope we can make something at Nascondiglio di Bacco which doesn't just fit some cookie cutter, Parkersenian mold of what is thought of as correct wine these days.
I then touched bases with all my wine making buddies from the neighboring hills before heading into a tasting of sparkling wines from around the world.
We started with Austria, moved on to South Africa, then Alsace, Piemonte and finally Champagne.
All were made in the metodo classico style which indicates a re-fermentation in the bottle.
1. Brundlmayer from 2004 was a very tart, not unpleasing beginning, made from Pinot Noir, Chard. Veltliner, Pinot grigio and Pinot bianco. I rated it 82.
2. Pongracz was fashioned from 60% Pinot Noir and 40% chard and could have been alcoholized Sprite. Rating 83 for a bit more complexity.
3. Fernand Engel provided our 3rd sample, a 2006 Cremant d'Alsace with a majority of Pinot Noir followed by every other grape you can think of from Colmar including Auxois; another 83 pointer.
4. Valentino makes a very interesting sparkler from the Piedmont which is 100% chard. and spends 60 months on the lees, ifollowed by another 8-10 months in bottle after degorgement. It has slightly oxidized notes at 1st whiff but these blew off, and while it was very complex showing traces of (over-) mature fruit, I just couldn't enjoy it that much. That being said, it is worth searching out as my gusto is certainly different than yours and most at the tasting enjoyed it. Annato- 2000: 86 points
5. George Veselle 2002 was my favorite and even blind, I could have picked this one as being the real McCoy. this also spends 5 years making friends with the dead yeast cells and had those wonderful, never ending tiny bubbles and a nice yeasty nose. 90% Pinot Noir give it extra complexity and the remainder is Chard. I rated it 91 and then asked what it costs and was reminded why I don't cant drink champagne anymore-70 euros wholesale. Too bad the bottle was empty at the end.

After the tasting, which used INAO glasses, unfortunately, I visited the various food booths before stopping by my friend, the baron's new little wine shop in Offida, recently opened.
Included are photos from the event which you can make plans to attend next year if you are free! Blind tasting table, Main wine tasting hall (an old Franciscan monastery), the wrong glasses, the empty bottles and the baron pouring his child-Ballata.
dds
PS: As I was writing this, my great ears which grazie al Signore still are sharp led me outdoors to see a new bird species which is one of the most wildly colored in Italy called Gruccione. Look it up on google image. It definitely made my day!

Taking some heat!

5 settembre
After taking some heat from my good catholic friends, I must clarify our experience of Monday night. 1st, the normal mass which i attend and which was celebrated Monday night and lasted an hour, is enjoyable and similar to what I am used to, with certain differences like the language, of course. But, as Raffaele reminded me, this healing service lasted 4.5 hours, so that was 3.5 hours of rosaries (not an hour as i said before), both spoken and sung, and for me, that was a bit much. Of course, being a quasi-well controlled A.D.D., 3.5 hours of anything is too much. (After thinking a bit and getting breakfast ready for our guests, I must say I would gladly have a 3.5 hour conversation with a beautiful, intelligent woman over dinner)
Raffaele explained to me that the rosary was not a thing heavily contemplated while it was performed, but instead was a way to get a breathing pattern started which helped with concentration, meditation, and get more oxygen to the brain. My friend Kevin, who writes much better than me, shared the following which I will share unedited (although that would have been a fun thing to do. From an email titled Oh You Protestant Heathen:

Re the Rosary,

From your last blog, it is clear that the straight-line, clear headed, literal, work-ethic centric Protestant thinking of your heritage is clouding your ability to appreciate the lyrical patterns of the Roman Catholic Rosary prayer ritual, which are not intended to be a focus just on the simple but sublime messages of the core prayers of the Catholic faith, the Our Father and the Hail Mary, but instead to create a individual meditative environment in which a true prayerful interaction with God can be celebrated.

Another take is the historic one, in which poor medieval Catholics who could neither read nor write used the beads to keep track of the simple prayers they knew, recited en masse in lieu of reading from prayerbooks.

I must say, he hit the protestant thing on the head.
I am off to Divino Vino today, our local wine festival. Today, there will be a tasting of sparkling wines of the world. Tomorrow is the wedding and Sunday is a recovery day, I am sure.
The pictures are of Bacco at 730, ready to play, the drying figs from our trees and Raffaele's "cookies", a new experiment.

ds
His

EXORCISMS IN THE MARCHE??

3 Settembre
I hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day holiday in the US. What a shock to read about the new VP candidate for McCain. I was sure it would be Lieberman. Nice to see Gustav took a pass on New Orleans; I always wondered why there were never any hurricane Dwights.
We had our penultimate weekend full and for the 1st time since July are empty today. We could sleep in, although I never have that luxury with Bacco in the room! We are changing all the rooms from double beds into singles for a group of folks coming in for a wedding next weekend and then we will again be full.
I am still chopping away at olive trees as you can see by the photos. Bacco keeps guard below in case I fall and you can see the piles of branches I have cut away. These are similar to the suckers you pull away from tomato plants, nonproductive and energy stealers. The whole process is repeated in the winter months.
Still sunny and dry here and the olives look like little old men with wrinkles in their skin. We need a good drenching rain. It is nearly time to pick the white grapes and hang them up to dry for our next passito and I am currently drying a bunch of figs in the oven to preserve them.
Monday we left Nascondiglio di Bacco at 1630 with our neighbor Luigi and his wife and headed off to his priestly cousin's church where every Monday and Friday night they have a healing-exorcism service. The church was packed and I must say I have now heard enough Hail Marys and Our Fathers to last me a good while! 30 minutes at the beginning and at the end the same. I am not used to the catholic rite of saying the rosary and wonder if people ever stop to think about the words and what they are asking or just reciting words located in the "prerecorded" parts of their brains. The service ended at 1130 when the final person was blessed. There were folks screaming and moaning; you would have thought it was a pentecostal service. I hope some of the people were helped out. We then ate a communal supper with Luigi's cousin and his assistant, a francescan friar and lay helpers before returning home. We got back the the B&B at 0300, almost time to start breakfast for that day. As I told Raffaele, it is an experience I only need to see once in a lifetime and he countered with "the next time we stay out until 0300, let's go to a disco where there are girls". I have to agree with that one!
The pool has been malfunctioning the last 3 days and we are finding the lower pool half empty. We are waiting to hear the "pool guy" (a term i use more loosely each time as he has no clue about pools) say he doesn't know what the hell is wrong, but as yet he is too proud to admit his ignorance.
It is music festival time here in the Ascoli Piceno province and there is currently a classical music festival at Cupra Marittima, a brass festival at Ascoli which follows the guitar festival of a week ago and will be followed by the Ascoli Piceno festival of classical music.
There are also a few food festivals yet to come like the Sagra of frogs (frog's legs?) at Belmonte Piceno, Divino Vino, a wine festival here at Offida next weekend and in the area there will be sagras for polenta, potatoes and vino cotto (cooked wine), another for archeology and gastronomy and one for mushrooms, all in September.
The pictures show Bacco below me, my feet and part of a pile of branches, 2 trees already pruned and our vineyard looking from north to south and finally sunset from yesterday.
Have a great week!
dds

Off the autostrada in emilia romagna and conero

30 august---where did the summer go?
The pictures are of a little gem of an agriturismo you can only find by exiting the autostrada and taking it easy for a little while. they have suites and regular rooms and a nice menu. I even drank lambrusco, adrian!
The balsamic vinegar factory dates back centuries and our tour guide was the 17th generation from the family. You can find it in america with the name Giuseppe Giusti.
Then on to the conero promontory just south of Ancona where you see the famous beach of the 2 sisters which you can only get to by hiking a very step trail or by boat, then the coastline of Sirolo and finally sunset over that part of the Marche from the hotel terrace where you can enjoy a nice beer or prosecco and watch the colors change.
dds

Aida and Verona fotos

30 Agosto
The pictures show the Arena in Verona, a shot of the spectacle of Aida, pix from the Giardino Giusti in Verona and Enoteca Segreta.
dds