To Abruzzo with love

Travelling on a mini bus complete with a mink coat, my friend Marina decided to join us on our visit to Abruzzo. She figured as she had organised the trip she would accompany us. Looking glamorous in her fur (still common in Italy) she looked slightly incongruous, obviously not one of the group as we all looked very casual and crumpled in our jeans and jackets.

We arrived at our first winery (which I won’t name as it will embarrass them) and were welcomed by our guide, the director of IRMUS, an agricultural department of the local government. ‘Lino’ was obviously a ‘ladies man’ and gravitated immediately to Marina, who I must admit looked fabulous. He took her by the arm and spoke to her as if she was the only person in the world. This was quite remarkable considering he was supposed to be guiding us through the company’s winery and products. The guys were getting fed up while my friend Patricia (who lives in Italy) and myself were laughing at the obviousness of his attention. Marina was terribly embarrassed and tried to evade his attentions.

As it turned out, he didn’t really know a lot about wine and said a lot of stupid things that put everyone offside, things like the winery’s spumante was better than the finest quality Champagne when we as a group couldn’t even finish it. There was only one wine that was universally liked, an inexpensive Novello.

We finished our tour of the winery and thought we would get rid of Lino here but no, he accompanied us back all the way to the agriturismo where we were staying the night. I must say we all behaved ourselves very well and waited until he finally left before we all had a good laugh.

On te top of the hill, a farmer's cottage for inclement weather

It was late autumn and getting very cold so the next morning we all rugged up for our next foray into the wilds of Abruzzo. Again I will not name the winery as I wouldn’t want to give them bad publicity even though they deserve it.

We found Colle S after a long drive on the highway which travelled over the water – half road half bridge. When we finally arrived we saw a winery which had seen better days but still produced over a million bottles a year and with an enormous market in Miami of all places. We were taken to the director’s office and provided with a motley assortment of chairs. As the winery wasn’t in production at that time there wasn’t anyone else around except for two men who never introduced themselves. We were welcome but no names or positions were mentioned.

We were told all about the winery and the new vineyards that had been planted, how far they were above sea level they were (300 metres) and the fact that they produced 100% organic wines. We also learnt about a 400 year old cottage that was going to be renovated and made into a tasting room. It felt that the room we were in was around about the same age, as it had become dramatically colder while we were sitting there.

They asked us if we would like to taste the wines, of course we said yes and out came a lot of tumblers which you would use for beer or soft drink. Now tumblers do have their place but a wine tasting isn’t it, especially when there is a shelf of Riedel wine glasses just sitting there. We asked if we could use the Reidel glassware and we were told no, they were only used at Vinitaly. I would have thought that if you had a number of wine writers from all over the world you would want them to get the best impression of your wines but obviously not, we simply weren’t good enough for the good glasses!

Marina picks some olives

Our next stop was much more pleasant and was where I learnt how to judge olive oil. Marina Colonna is a Principessa (princess) who runs an olive farm in Abruzzo and produces amazing olive oils. Her extra virgin olive oil and infused oils are available in several shops around Australia and I would advise anyone who cooks fish to try her lemon infused oil.

Picking the olives

We strolled through the olive groves as they were picking the olives, Marina stooping occasionally to tell us something or to scoop up a collection of olives. Unlike most of the producers in the area, Marina picks her olives when they are barely ripe and she presses them straight away at her own Frantoio (The quicker you press them the better the oil. You don’t want to let them oxidise at all). Many local producers leave their olives on the trees and harvest them by machine. It grabs the tree and shakes the trunk leaving the ripe olives to fall off onto mats on the ground, cheaper but it produces a slightly poorer oil as the olives can be damaged and are often over ripe.

Sheep in a shed

Marina Colonna also has 800 sheep on her farm. These are milked daily and the milk goes to a local cheesemaker. The sheep were kept in two enormous brick barns and although not tethered , they never saw the outside world except through the doors of the barn. There were over 100 lambs when we were there and this way of keeping them was absolutely normal. The lambs were very cute but I don’t know how long that lasts as the older sheep were the ugliest sheep I have ever seen with long narrow faces like look more like goats.

An olive grove on Marina Colonna's land

We then went into the house (a magnificent 200 year old villa) and we sat down and learnt the principles of olive oil tasting which is very similar to wine tasting.  You just do it back to front. You smell the oil, taste it and then look at the colour. The tasting is one with blue coloured glasses so that the colour doesn’t influence you at all. However, even though the aroma is pleasant you can feel quite queasy after the tasting as you can’t spit. The oil has to be swirled around the mouth and then swallowed to get the full effect of the oil in the throat. After about ten oils you start to feel sick but I am told that the more experience you get the more oils you can taste.

Lunch was presented next and we were served a lovely meal of lobster with pasta or lamb and pasta. We must have appeared to be pigs in disguise as we all had both. We then had a main meal of Salmon or baked lamb. Again we all stuffed ourselves with both. The food was ‘stupendous!’ We finished off with a simple crostata which was the only thing to serve as anything richer would have made us ill after the olive oil tasting and the hearty meal.

We rose from the table, all of us feeling the inevitable effects of too much food and said our goodbyes and made our way to the bus. We still had another two wineries to visit that day, the last one included dinner. Our last thoughts on getting back on the bus were ‘Would we ever eat again?

Apruntino - wonderful ceramics museum

Next: Our journey continues in Abruzzo