Dying on the Vine Read Free

officious, impatient, eldest son.
    “It macerates the—”
    “It
what
?”
    Franco pursed his lips. Clearly, he knew he was being had, but he also knew that Pietro would trust his judgment in the end, as he always did when it came to things that didn’t engage his father’s interest—such as modern production methods and sophisticated equipment. “A rotary fermenter,” he said through only slightly clenched teeth, “will assure consistent contact between the must-cap and the juice, not only shortening the total fermentation time, but eliminating the labor-intensive—”
    He was interrupted by Luca, the middle son. “Rotary fermenters,” he said disgustedly, “those cement-mixers you love so much—damn it, Franco, can’t you see they rob the grapes of their individual character, of everything that separates the soil of
our
vineyards from every other vineyard in the Val d’Arno? No, better to take a little longer and let the wine macerate naturally into what it was
meant
to be, not something some machine made it into.”
    Pietro unconsciously nodded his head in agreement. When it came to wine—when it came to just about everything—the old ways were best. If they weren’t, would they still be around after all these centuries?
    But Franco shook his head sadly. “Ah, Luca, you’re living in the past. Today, the manufacture of wine—”
    “
Manufacture
of wine?” Luca’s eyebrows jumped up. “Did I hear that right? Since when do we
manufacture
wine? Are we the Villa Antica wine factory now? Do we produce our wines on an assembly line, producing a thousand bottles a day of perfectly uniform, identical wine . . .”
    It was an old, ongoing argument between the two, and Pietro’s mind drifted. How different they were from each other, these sons of his. It wasn’t that Franco was without merit. He was smart, he was a hard worker, and he was single-mindedly dedicated to Villa Antica. Much of the winery’s growth had been due to his ingenuity and foresight. He knew everything there was to know—far more than Pietro did—about the science of winemaking.
    But, and it was a big
but . . .
for Franco it was
all
science—all polymerization, micro-oxygenization, anthocyanin extraction. In evaluating a wine, Franco would trust his Brix hydrometers and his protein precipitation meters before he’d trust his own palate. He had the head of a winemaker, yes, but not the heart; there was no feeling in him for wine, no passion. For Pietro, wine was a wonderful gift from God, and to be privileged to devote one’s life to making it, nurturing it from vine to bottle, was an even greater gift.
    Uncork a fine bottle of wine—a 2003 Villa Antica Sangiovese Riserva, for example—on a gray winter’s night with snow swirling outside, and your nose was immediately filled with the aromas of the rich loam from which the grapes had sprung and with the warm, dry air of early autumn. You could practically feel the sun on the back of your neck. And then the first taste, taken with the eyes closed . . .
    But Franco? Did he even
like
wine? Once when they were tasting to decide if a bottling was ready for release, Franco was going on and on about acetate esters and phenols. Pietro, finally losing patience, had asked him whether he
liked
it or not.
    Franco had looked at him with honest incomprehension. “What’s liking got to do with it?”
    Pietro had just shaken his head and mouthed a silent
mamma mia.
    Luca was as different as different could be. Luca had for wine the same deep affection that Pietro did. More important, like Pietro he respected it for what is was. He understood the soil and the seasons and the life cycle of the grape itself. But, somewhere along the way, he had lost interest. Possibly, this was a result of frustration. Luca being the middle son, he’d had to take a back seat to Franco in winery matters. In Villa Antica’s unofficial hierarchy, Franco was the chief operating officer, Luca the head