Old School

"Going back to my roots, yeah...", as the song goes. Well, here's some Via Vecchia roots for you. This is where Via Vecchia derives its inspiration and process from; from the heart of the Lunigiana in Toscana, Italy. Village of Grondola in the Appenines to be precise. Also managed to pick up some great agricultural oriented magazines that feature a lot of wine making and I think the rest of Via Vecchia will get a kick out of them to see we do it the real way. In fact, I was grilled by no-nonsense-hunt all year round- slaughter my livestock in my garage- neighbor, Giannino, over the technique we use here and I think I passed muster. He threatened to visit us too.

These pictures show a traditional cantina in use. Via Vecchia would be at home here as all the equipment and method is familiar to us. In fact, this is where Dad has his wine kept for him and from where I brought back two bottles.

This picture is of the cantina. Below a house and it's made entirely of block stone, even the floor, great for that stable temperature with right amount of humidity. In this view you can make out the wine primary fermenter (back left) and grape baskets (back left below red hose), an oil siphoner on the shelf at left (old style glass with straw protection around the base), among the demijons we all know and love.

In this picture you see the primary fermenter. Grapes are thrown in, crushed by foot, then left to ferment. This one's really old and Dad remembers using it in the late 1930s. To help with scale this stands about 6 feet tall and about 4 feet in diameter. Notice siphon hoses.


In this one you see two grape picker baskets, stacked one upon and in the other. When full they were strapped to a donkey and brought back to this cantina (and others) for the crushing of their contents.
More from the annals of tradition to come...keep watching.

Hey, how about that Sanjaya? Wot?

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