golden globes, plump sun-kissed orbs
a sea of wild flowers
and bumbling bees
intoxicated by the sweet nectar
of moscato.
OK, OK… I got a little carried away. And I am not much of an ode writer. But seriously, the moscato vineyards of Terracina are the most beautiful I have ever seen. Albeit, I haven’t visited most of the world’s wine growing regions, but I would bet these are high on some figurative list of vineyard beauty. The soil. the vines, the grapes, the surrounding gardens and olive groves, the view….the list goes on. I was lucky to be able to spend a few days with Andrea Pandolfo of Sant’Andrea, the man who never stops working. Literally. But, he brought me along to view his 2 prized moscato vineyards. Moscato is one of the most widely planted grapes in Italy, but it is almost always made into a sweet, frizzante wine with low alcohol (a la Moscato d’Asti). But Andrea is creating a fantastic DRY, still Moscato di Terracina. Terracina is located about an hour south of Rome on the coast. It is surrounded by clusters of small towns and farmland dedicated almost solely to agriculture and, you guessed it, grapes!
The first vineyard we visited, growing only moscato, was in an area called La Fiora. Vigaro and his wife work the land and tend to the grapes every day. They also have a garden (with pomegranates, artichokes and cactus fruit/fichi d’india) and an olive grove within the vineyard. They greeted us at the property’s gate and we followed them as they wandered through the 60 year old vines selecting grapes. Not for harvest this time, but for eating at home. Oh how I desperately wish this was where I got my “table grapes” for daily snacking.
This was my first experience tasting moscato grapes right off the vine. One tooth in and I was in heaven. Every aroma I love about moscato wine was all there instantly in the juice. It tasted of the most perfect peach…warm and ripe from the sun. Andrea pointed out that some of the grapes, even in the same cluster, were less ripe than others. He prefers this as the greeness balances the ripeness. And he doesn’t mind a few cooked berries toasted by the sun either…it just adds another layer of flavor.
The ripe side....
The green side
Before we were set to leave, Vigaro’s wife came walking back to us after having disappeared off to the outer edges of the vineyard. She returned carrying a crate of dark grapes. I found that odd because the vineyard only grows Moscato. Andrea informed me that these were wild grapes called uva fragola.
After biting into one, I knew exactly why they were given this name. Eyes closed and texture aside, I was biting into a strawberry. I would have bet a milion dollars. They grow all over Italy and most people snack on them or make the into a simple sweet wine for sipping at home. No one can sell this wine under Italian law because the grapes are wild. But, what an amazing dessert wine that would be! With a basket of fichi d’india, a crate of uva fragola and enough moscato grapes for weeks we scraped the mud off our shoes and hit the road. While I thought this vineyard was amazing, the best was yet to come.
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