If you’re a wine lover, but have never tried good Italian wines, I promise you that by the time you’ve finished Sergio Esposito's Passion on the Vine: A Memoir of Wine, Food, and Family, if not before, you’ll be champing at the bit to taste a good Italian wine.
If you’re not a wine lover, I’ll make you the same promise.
“Whenever I drank it, I felt as if a pair of hands had reached out from the glass, grabbed my ears, and pulled me closer.”
For me, a glass of wine will never again be the same. Ever. Now, when I take a sip of wine, I’ll think about the truly unique quality of many Italian wines. In Italy, at least among the better grape growers, the grapes are a part of the family and are treated as such. I’ll think about terroir. I’ll think about Perché è così. I’ll think about mushrooms picked under a full moon. I’ll think about spaghetti alla chitarra. I’ll think about the Barolo Boys and Luigi Veronelli. I’ll think of wine as a spaceship. All these references are extremely well explained in the book, and I urge you to search out their meanings.
The author of Passion on the Vine missed his calling. He’s a natural born writer. On page one I was back in Italy again, driving from Naples to Rome. By page two it was déja vu, and I, too, recall people telling my how lucky I was to have to the job I had. Yes, I was lucky, but I also worked damned hard and damned long hours. And the harder I worked, the luckier I got. And by page three I was laughing in fond remembrance, although it wasn’t always pleasant or cause for laughing when it had first happened.
Rather than relate my interpretations, allow me to paraphrase what the author says and you’ll get a more accurate rendering. Here are some sections in the book that made a particular impression on me.
One grower said young grapes are like a young woman. She has the body of a mature woman, but she’s still a child. Treat her well when she’s young, and she’ll treat you well when she’s older. When she’s young, her bounty of grapes is copious. But the grapes from young vines are sugar water. They’re not grapes, they’re sweets that look like grapes. Treat the plant well when she’s young and she ages gracefully, and when she reaches maturity, that’s when her absolute finest grapes are produced. And because you’ve treated her well when she was young, she’s kinder to you in her maturity, and she gives you a bounty of true, delicious grapes. Grapes that have the flavor of the land, the people, and the nurturing she received from you when she was young. Vines that are planted today will supply the grapes that are harvested by the grower’s children, just as the grapes that the grower reaps today were planted by his parents. It takes that long.
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