Sprinting back up the slope after a refreshing November swim off the cliffs surrounding the lighthouse of Giglio island, I meet my classmates, who seem lost as our guide is missing. We’re late. Moments after, our guide emerges through the trees to shepherd us to our next visit. Sweating, panting, and covered in salt water, I enter the vineyard below. A white-haired man greets us with a beaming smile while picking lemons for us in his garden. His bright red dress shirt with small black polkadots makes him stick out like a large ladybug in the surrounding sea of green. As we walk down to meet him, we are received by his older wolf-like hound with the bark of a heavy smoker and his tiny mutt, who we quickly realize is blind. Escorted by his trusty watchdogs, we find him in a decaying white stucco farmhouse with a stone roof and bright green door. He is chopping his lemons and mint to place in glass jugs of water for “his thirsty daughters” as he dubs our group of all women, automatically making us family.
Up close, I see his ruddy cheeks and face flushed from perhaps too much of his own wine. His eyes appear glossy, shaded by heavy bushy brows. He opens his arms, gives us a grin, and stretches his body up to the sun, exposing his ample belly. From inside the farmhouse, he brings us a glass jug of golden wine, shimmering in the sunlight. This wine, called Ansonaco, is made from ansonica grapes, an ancient variety native to the island of Giglio, famous since the Roman times. Historically, these grapes, for both eating and Ansonaco wine, formed the basis of the island’s economy. The famed Giglio wine was even used by Popes in the sacraments. It’s holy. In the jug, it appears cloudy and wild—a wine unfiltered and free to ferment with natural yeast. This particular wine was from this year’s harvest, un-bottled and filled from plastic containers taken directly from the stainless steel tanks. To be honest, that’s all I really remember of the Ansonaco—young, wild, and free. The wine paled in comparison to the events to come, merely acting as a social lubricant for what was unfolding before us.
As we drink the wine in the surprisingly warm November sun, reality seems to slip away as we enter a nearly Shakespearean Comedy of Errors. He declares that he is making us lunch—caciucco, a type of stew with local fish given to him by his fisherman friend on the island. We give a grateful toast and hear him giggle from within the farmhouse as he starts hacking away at the onions. Our guide is given the task of setting up the table with three wooden stands and a plank of wood. The grey wood is old and decaying, much like the farmhouse. He struggles to get all the rickety elements into place. Once finally aligned, our winemaker emerges from the farmhouse to insist he move the table over a foot to then change his mind and have him move it back again. All the while, the blind mutt is continually running into every object in her path, including the table, and the wolf-like hound alternates from sleeping to running off to huff and puff at some unseen rabbits—his archenemies as he declares them. A pleasant chaos begins to ensue.
We consume more Ansonaco, which continues to blur reality as we realize its strength. He pops in and out of the farmhouse, switching from cooking to sharing his story and his wisdom. He learned everything he knows from his father, who passed away five years after he started running Altura vineyard sixteen years ago. He started small, just for family and friends, but always viewed the endeavor as his “big life adventure.” Today, they are still small, but with international acclaim. He produces his wine organically, reconverting the overgrown “jungle” around us, which was once all vineyards in its original Roman “splendor.” While speaking, his movement from darkness to sunlight seems loose and fluid, much like his mind.
Aromatic smells begin wafting from inside the farmhouse. Onions, garlic, bayleaves and peperoncini are slowly frying in olive oil over a single gas burner. Time passes just as slowly, yet time itself begins to feel irrelevant, as if we’re in a world where days are measured by meals and not the relentless ticking of a clock. Next, tomatoes are added and then the four whole fish to stew. In the meantime, I offer myself as a sous-chef to help grill the bread for the bruschetta. Inside is cluttered with old newspapers and plastic bottles. I find a rusting scythe beneath the gas burner—a bit precarious. He lights up as I enter the dark room. He is happy to have my help, maybe too happy. As we chat away in the farmhouse, he calls me “Carina, my piccola sous-chef!” as he swats me on the nose like a playful cat. Once the bread is grilled, he shows me how to rub the bread with half a clove of sweet garlic, which he then tosses into his mouth as a snack. I bring the bread out to our guide and my hungry companions, lounging in the sun at our makeshift table, surrounded by the jungle of vines.
And then, it’s time. He calls me back into the farmhouse to line the rim of the deep pan of fish stew with the remaining grilled bread in the shape of a crown. He sets the stew upon the table as if presenting a masterpiece, which it is indeed. The fish is tender, saturated with tomatoes, and infused with aromatics, made from the heart of our eccentric winemaker. I wash down my last glorious bite with another slip of Ansonaco. Five hours have passed. The sun is setting. Now it’s time to enter the jungle…
Hillary, a jack of all trades, studied anthropology, dance, and international studies at Connecticut College, as well as sustainability at the Earth Institute of Columbia University. Her latest mission is creating agro-communities in the Hudson Valley where she's in the midst of starting her own community-building cooperative, called the Green Onion.