Everyone is waiting for the fruit to ripen and the harvest to really get started. Luciano and Luca seem nervous, almost. Luciano tells me that last year, the final grapes arrived at the winery on October 2. This year, we’ve barely gotten 15% of them in by the same date. The worry is that everything is going to ripen and be ready to pick at the same time. Generally, the nights have been very cool (I’ve been wearing pj’s to keep warm) and the days almost hot – perfect for the Nebbiolo. Still, things are not ripening quickly enough. The morning is spent moving pallets, packing shipments, busy, busy, busy … but I feel like some alone time so I start on cleaning the crush pad at 8.30. This is a big job, and some of the grapes that arrived last night were truly terrible, awful grapes – one was a variety called “Blood of Judas” – a minor Tuscan grape that is added to jug wine for color. It throws off so much tartrate and color that the stuff is literally coated all over the destemmer. Blood of Judas is one of the few varieties of grape to have red juice, so after eating a few last night – tart, bitter, tannic and not really pleasant – my tongue is stained blackish-red. Andrea, Christian, Ivan and Luciano think this is hilarious ...
It takes an hour with the high-pressure hose to get a good part of the shit left by this grape off the inside of the machine. However, the haze starts clearing, a warm dry wind starts out of the north, and I am happy as a clam in a shell not talking to anyone for a few hours. I clean the sorting table – the conveyor belt is a sticky mess – the staging equipment, the buckets and hoses, I pitchfork stems into compost containers, everything. At noon I am just finishing up hosing down the floor and setting the equipment back to place when Andrea finds me to tell me that it is time for lunch. He is speechless: everyone thought I was with someone else, working on something, and no-one knew I was up here cleaning the crush pad. It is apparently perfect. Luciano comes up and moves one strainer two inches, saying it wasn’t exactly right, all the while howling with laughter.
Friday is Barbara’s birthday. 
When she leads a group of British tourists by the crush pad during my cleaning frenzy, I get them all to sing her happy birthday, to her infinite embarrassment. I’m promised a spanking later on – oh my my. Later, the whole winery crew celebrates with pastries, moscato and beer. Luciano’s cousin is down from Basel, where he now lives with his family, and I am introduced … soon we are all chatting away in Swiss-German, Italian, French and English. An “insalata mista” if there ever was one. Ha!
Pic: with Barbara and her two kids. Yes, the hair is getting unruly. Please note the blue apron, standard issue Italian laborer's apron, of which I am now the proud recipient ... makes me feel like I've been accepted. I was talking to an American who was here to work the harvest a few weeks ago, who was telling me about all the stuff loaded up on the ipod that she would listen to during harvest time ... but how do you connect when attached to that device, which is by its very nature exclusionary? How do you learn a language if you're not hearing it constantly? Why bother coming, really? In any case, I'm proud to say that I've used my iPod for a total of something less than, say, 45 minutes since arriving in Barolo. I'm getting better at understanding the language, and Luciano is now giving me the Piedmontese dialect along with the Italian when he explains something.
His new hobby seems to be laughing at me trying to cuss in Piedmontese ... A source of great amusement to him.
The wind has cleared out the haze and mist and the evening is spectacular. 
This is possibly the loveliest I have ever seen the area – Monte Viso appears incredibly close, and the sky, as it darkens, goes from orange to red to blue to purple to black. Amazing.
Saturday is clear and sunny – a gorgeous fall day. Tourists are beginning to become a traffic hazard – they are tramping through the hills, showing up at the winery unannounced, and generally blocking traffic on many of the small back roads.
I spend the morning at the winery topping off tonneaux with Andrea and Luciano. At noon I head home – no grapes until Monday, when, apparently, all hell will break loose. Sunday I laze, write, read and go for a four-hour ramble of the villages – from here to Perno, then Castiglione, then across to Serralunga and back up to Monforte. The first tinges of fall colors are in the vineyards – some parcels are going to yellow and red, and some of the neatly planted groves of poplars (harvested for paper pulp) are turning yellow-gold.
Late afternoon, back from the hike, on the terrace of my apartment, enjoying the warmth of the late-afternoon sun. I like this smaller apartment better – it feels less empty to me. After years of lining in a big, rambling old house, it is nice to realize how much I like having just a small space. It makes me that much more excited for my move to the apartment in Denver, though that will feel huge after my time in this little matchbox.
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