Daniel Gritzer

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Vanessa enjoys the crisp air and view from Piero and Raffa’s porch
Vanessa and I have completed our crash course in shepherding and returned to the north of Italy. We have a few days to kill before the start of Slow Food’s biennial Terra Madre event in Torino, so we have taken advantage of the time [...]

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Piero, left, and Giuseppe
Vanessa and I have made plans to travel south to the region of Molise, Italy, for two weeks, where we will learn to work as shepherds on a dairy farm. We had a few hours to spare before catching our overnight train, so Piero took us to a farm near Asti to [...]

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Dolcetto, the Piemontese grape
The period just before the wine harvest is a critical and stressful one for wine makers. Piero had made a preliminary trip to his vineyard in Strevi earlier this week, anxiously examining the dolcetto grapes to decide which day would be best for the harvest. An extra few days on the [...]

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Imagine the witches in Hamlet hunched over their cauldron chanting the following words:
Mouchos, coruxas, sapos e bruxas.
Demos, trasnos e dianhos, espiritos das nevoadas veigas.
Corvos, pintigas e meigas, feitizos das mencinheiras.
Pobres canhotas furadas, fogar dos vermes e alimanhas…
The incantation goes on, but that’s the basic idea. It’s in Gallego, the regional language of Galicia, and it [...]

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Every year at La Mothe Didier gathers and ferments plums, mirabelles, and pears for his eau-de-vie, or brandy as it is also known. In summer he fills large vats, keeping each type of fruit separate, and leaves them to ferment until it is time to distill the juice in midwinter. Mirabelles, although a subspecies of [...]