Buongiorno!
Today is our last excursion organized by Savour Italy Tours. It is a visit to the wine-making premises of Cantina del Notaio in Rionero in Vulture.
First, a quick description of the town. Rionero in Vulture is situated north west of Lecce, almost dead west of Bari and east of Salerno. It is built at the foot of an ancient extinct volcano called Vulture and is surrounded by mountainous territory. The volcanic soil is ideal for producing some of the best red wine Italy has to offer - Aglianico.
The story of this winery is quite interesting. The Giuratrabocchetti family had been wine-making for seven generations but almost entirely for their own use. In 1998, one member of the family decided to give up his professional career to start this winery. His father, a notary, was aghast at the decision but allowed his son to use a portion of the family building he was not using for his own office. The building sat on top of caves where Franciscan monks made and stored their wine hundreds of years ago. The son, determined to show his father he could make the winery a success, named it “Notaio”, “notary” in English, as a challenge for himself. Today, the current owners have blended traditional approaches to wine-making with modern innovations.
Here we see our guide pointing out some vintage machines that were used to bottle and cork the wines.
Our tour of the winery started by coming outside and descending a set of stairs
You can see the steps in this photo. And just to left, at the bottom, there was another set of steps leading down into the caves where the wine is both made, bottled and stored to age.
Here is one of the many caves in which the wine is allowed to mature before bottling.
If you look carefully, you can make out small patches of white that are in the walls of the cave. This is mold! It is considered a good thing up to a point. It indicates a certain level of humidity and temperature that is appropriate for the maturation of the wine in the barrels. To reassure you, it is monitored very closely to ensure that there are no sudden fluctuations in these conditions that could cause the wine to spoil.
We were amazed at how many caves there were. We went from room to room and were told that these were actually located under the busy streets of Rionero del Vulture!
Here’s a passageway from one cave to the next. Even I had to bend my head down to get through!
And here we are in the area of the caves where the wine has been bottled and is now aging until the wine-makers decide it’s just right!
On our way back upstairs to the actual wine-tasting, I spied this wall-hanging:
Ok, now for the wines:
In order, from left to right, Il Rogito (a rosato), Il Protesto (an effervescent red wine made in the champenoise style - so no, it is not a Prosecco), La Firma (an Aglianico) and Il Sigillo (a very stately Aglianico that is complex and wonderful as a wine to have at the very end of an evening, on its own!)
We bought one of each to try during our stay in Salerno!
As you would expect, the wines were paired with various cheeses, both mild and strong, and with various cured meats, also ranging from mild to strong. Our hostess told us a great story about the one cheese that you can see in the middle of the bottom row - yellow with a reddish colour in the middle. Apparently, when coming to the United States in the last century, Italian immigrants were told that they could not bring meat into the country. As a result, future waves of immigrants cleverly put their cured meats inside a roll of cheese so it wouldn’t be discovered by customs authorities!!!!
And so, that brings to an end our wonderful trip organized by our friends at Savour Italy tours - thank you so much - grazie mille Antonio, Coltura, Filippo e Guiseppe! E stato davvero un viaggio indimenticable!
But that doesn’t mean we’re done with Italy just yet! Next, we’re on to Salerno, our favourite destination from our trip last year. We’re signed up for more lessons in Italian at the Accademie Italiano, where we’ll meet up with the terrific instructors that make learning Italian fun. Plus, we’ll have more to report on the history, culture, and food from the region of Campania.
Ciao for now!
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