{"id":186,"date":"2009-10-07T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2009-10-07T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=186"},"modified":"2009-10-07T08:00:19","modified_gmt":"2009-10-07T12:00:19","slug":"la-vendemmia-%e2%80%93-un-po-di-vocabolario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/la-vendemmia-%e2%80%93-un-po-di-vocabolario\/","title":{"rendered":"La Vendemmia \u2013 un po’ di vocabolario"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the great pleasures of living in our little village in Lunigiana, is being surrounded by nature and her changes of season. The lives of the contadini<\/strong> (peasant farmers) are still closely tied to the ancient rituals that have always accompanied natures rhythms. Late September, for example, is the period of la vendemmia<\/strong>, a word that originates from the Latin Vinum<\/strong> (vino) + Demere<\/strong> (levare), meaning \u2018the grape harvest\u2019. We also have the verb vendemmiare<\/strong> (to harvest the grapes), e.g. Ormai l\u2019uva \u00e8 matura, ed i contadini sono tutti nei vigneti a vendemmiare<\/strong> (The grapes are now ripe, and the peasants are all in the vineyards harvesting them).<\/span><\/p>\n

It has taken l\u2019uva<\/strong> (the grapes) all summer to reach maturity, and during that period they require quite a lot of care. <\/span>In primavera le viti\u00a0 vengono potate<\/strong> (In the spring the vines are pruned), poi vengono legate con rametti di salice<\/strong> (then they are tied with willow shoots). Salice<\/strong> (willow trees) are grown near the vineyards specifically for this purpose. They are pollarded, and each year the resulting shoots are cut when they are about a meter long, soaked in water to soften them, and used as a kind of string for tying the vine shoots in place. Even though there are now synthetic strings available for the purpose, salice is still the preferred material da noi <\/strong>(where we live), as it has been for centuries. Durante l\u2019estate le viti vanno trattate sia con il verderame che con lo zolfo<\/strong> (During the summer the vines must be treated with both Bordeaux mix and sulphur). If you have ever travelled through vineyards in Italy and have noticed that the vine leaves are a strange bluish-green color then what you are actually seeing is the verderame, which is a copper sulphate solution, that has been sprayed on the vines. Questi prodotti servono per evitare le malattie a cui sono soggette <\/strong>(these products are used in order to avoid the diseases which they are subject to).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Notice that in Italian we say l\u2019uva<\/strong> in the singular form to mean grapes collectively. So if you want to offer a friend a few grapes to eat you would say \u2018vuoi un po\u2019 di uva?<\/strong>\u2019 (would you like a few\/some grapes?). A bunch of grapes is called un grappolo<\/strong>, and each individual grape is un acino<\/strong>. <\/span><\/p>\n

The grapes, which are either bianca<\/strong> (white) or nera<\/strong> (literally black, we don\u2019t say \u2018uva rossa\u2019 – red grapes), are grown in rows, each of which is called un filare di viti<\/strong> (a row of vines). We use two similar words to describe a vineyard: la vigna<\/strong> or il vigneto<\/strong>, but dalle nostre parti<\/strong> (in our area) il vigneto<\/strong> is probably the most commonly used term. During la vendemmia<\/strong>, i grappoli<\/strong> are cut from le viti<\/strong> and placed in baskets to be transported back to la cantina<\/strong> (the cellar). These days people mostly use il trattore<\/strong> (the tractor) or la motocariola<\/strong> (a motorized wheelbarrow with caterpillar tracks) for transporting the grapes, but in the past it would have been the job of the ubiquitous asino<\/strong> (donkey).<\/span><\/p>\n

Alla prossima.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the great pleasures of living in our little village in Lunigiana, is being surrounded by nature and her changes of season. The lives of the contadini (peasant farmers) are still closely tied to the ancient rituals that have always accompanied natures rhythms. Late September, for example, is the period of la vendemmia, a…<\/p>\n

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