Page 96 of The Wrong Vintage
Interviews with internationally acclaimed winemakers—candidates Renzo has meticulously lined up at Cesare's insistence.
They all have several things in common: they’re not from the House of Alighieri, they claim to have a fresh vision—whatever that means—and they have global credibility.
All sophisticated corporate language that translates to one devastating thing: not Alessia.
I type a message to Renzo:Move them to two weeks from now. I’m going to be in Bolgheri.
Renzo:These meetings are on Zoom.
Me:Move them.
I lock my phone, set it on the lovingly restored desk.
I stare out at the vines instead, endless rows still scarred from harvest, leaves ragged and brittle, fruit gone.
She'll be out there soon, her slender fingers checking, her experienced palate tasting, her whole body listening to the land as only she can.
She doesn't know what's waiting in Florence.
I tell myself that's mercy, but the lie tastes like ash on my tongue.
22
NICO
I stay the weekend and work the vines with her.
The sun slashes down without mercy. It’s obvious the weather didn’t get the memo that it’s October and it’s freaking autumn.
This isn’t my first harvest. But I haven’t worked the vines like this in nearly a decade—and my body knows it. You can train in a gym all you want, lift heavy, run hard, push a personal trainer to exhaustion, but picking grapes is a different kind of work entirely.
It’s repetitive, unglamorous, and relentless.
Every rise and dip in the soil throws my ankles off balance, muscles I forgot I had protesting with each step.
The land doesn’t care how fit you think you are—it humbles you fast.
I shoulder a wooden crate, feeling its weight like it’s packed with wet concrete.
My gloves, already slick with grape juice, rub the skin raw at my fingertips. Sweet, sticky purple seeps through the thin leather, staining my nails and slipping under my cuticles.
“Lift with your legs,” grumbles Sergiu in Italian, one of the seasoned pickers, as he passes me in the next row.
His sunburned cheeks glisten with sweat, and his straw hat is tilted back, exposing a fringe of gray hair.
Sergiu, like many of Alessia’s picking crew, is from Romania.
Workers from across Europe come to Italy’s wine country during harvest, but Romanians are the largest group of foreign workers, returning year after year, following the harvest north and south across Italy, forming the backbone of thevendemmia.
Without them, a third of the industry would simply stop.
We have Albanians and Moroccans too, a handful of Senegalese nationals as well as a few local hands who come for tradition more than money—but it’s the Romanians who set the pace.
They know how to cut cleanly without tearing skins, how to stack crates so the fruit doesn’t bruise, and how to move fast without rushing.
Harvest looks romantic from the outside, but it’s migrant labor that makes it possible at this scale.
“It’s not my first harvest,” I tell Sergiu.
