Ok, well, first I should say that I am absolutely NOT sober. Our host, Micha, made sure of that. No. An afternoon of wine tasting in the Montferrato area of Piemonte. I do not usually drink, so, I do not vouch for the quality of these photos. But hey, we’ll give it a go.

Many trips to the California wine country have familiarized me with the whole wine producing apparatus. But here in Italy, we visited a community co-op and saw grapes coming in for crushing right after harvest. And we saw the crusher in action there.

We also spent a few hours with a relatively small producer, 22,000 bottles. I guess they’d call him a boutique producer in California. He was delightful. We sat in what looked like his dining room, and tasted. Although it could’ve been his version of a tasting room. I’ll try to give you the highlights while I am still able to type. Dinner, a pasta with funghi and anchovies, cooked by our hostess, will be served rather soon. But not soon enough for my buzz.

Allora.

First, you have to know that you can go to a cooperativo and fill up your wine jugs at pumps that look like gas pumps. You pump your own. Pick a price: high test or regular. Take a look.

At the same place, wine on draft. For tasting. Help yourself. And drink up!

Then, the “boys,’ as I call the laborers, drove the truck onto a scale. After that, they dumped the grapes into a crusher, just like the bigger ones you’d see in California. Identical, actually.

Rivers of wine, babies, just rivers of it, poured out of one truck.
And bees? Oh my God, bees up the wazoo. Bzzzzz!
(Toldja I wasn’t sober. But no, I didn’t have ANY bees up MY wazoo. But I could’ve. If I’d been wearing a skirt. I swear, it would’ve happened)