Day 15: Making Passito (dessert wine)

One of the vineyards I haven't shared with you yet is Specia. Specia is a gorgeous small vineyard that Corrado rescued 4 years ago. I heard him talking about the soil and how it was basically "gold" for the vines, rich with nurtients, not dry and crumbling. I wish I had gotten a photo of him grabbing a handful of the soil and smelling it the first time we came to harvest. Here is a photo from the vineyard. The town you see on the top of the hill is Cupramontana, and you can actually see the cellar to the right when the picture is blown up. I've kind of pointed it out here for you:

On this day we harvested some grapes to make passito, a special sweet wine. Instead of pressing them right away, we layed them out to dry in baskets and hung the extra clumpy ones in the attic of the cellar. This made for some great photos. There is something beautiful about grapes drying in a line in an attic. After 3 months, the water will be evaporated and the only thing left will be the natural sugars, so whatever they press will be extra sweet.

For lunch we had lunch with some journalists that were in town for the wine festival. I had grilled pork here for the first time. It was pretty tasty!

That night for dinner, Lisa, Hillary and I made dinner for everyone. I made a pasta dish (garlic parmesean cream sauce with spinach, sundried tomatoes, spinach and basil). Hillary made a garden salad but I failed to take a photo of it. For dessert I made apple turnovers. With each course we had a different bottle of wine. It was so great. I forgot to take photos of the wine that. How lame am I? But everyone seemed to think everything was tasty so dinner was a great success!