Articolo disponibile anche in: Italian
It is always a pleasure to drink a good glass of wine in company. What’s more, we are lucky: the scenario is always charming, be it with the antique country architecture of rock and bricks, or next to the fireplace during winter dinners; be it in the fresh air of the barnyard, or in the courtyard, or in the atrium, when the weather is nice.
A long table filled with friends with whom to share a spontaneous moment of happiness surrounded by the magnificence of Tuscany. We are inheritors of a philosophy, of a modus vivendi which has become tradition: Tuscan taste, the beautiful life, knowing how to enjoy oneself within limits, at the risk of stereotyped caricatures from those dazzled from afar.
A glass of wine or two…the cheese is irresistible, the prosciutto is calling me with its perfume, I have to refresh my mouth…and the atmosphere becomes more relaxing, we confide in each other, we are more comfortable, we talk about personal (even intimate) questions, discussions become deeper.
We create an atmosphere, a “social chain”, that makes me feel a part of everything. Reading deeper into these moments, we are reincarnated, we relive the past, that which for thousands of years has trampled, domesticated, humanized our lands; whether Etruscan, Latin or Florentine was spoken, whether it was called symposium or convivium.
Yes, I like the term “convivial”. It perfectly explains what wine is today and where it should be placed: amidst those who love each other, at the table, among honest words. Thanks to the recent economic crisis, professorial excesses, frigidly hedonistic with those who took advantage of wine over the millennium, seem to be over.
This is a long refound conviviality; the pleasure of spending time together, the rebirth of our instinct, behavioral and relational atavistic doctrine. How we got here is a beautiful, long story to tell; licentious, because it also involves carnal pleasures, compelling, because admission to women to the convivium was difficult (they had to work hard to cross dark moments like ‘lo ius osculi’), and other brighter things, like the life of Caterina de’ Medici, Dionysius, Bacchus, Fufluns; the land of flasks, sharecroppers, and the wit of the farmer.
In this infinite story, wine is always present –the same glass of red wine that we swirl today amongst laughter, chatter and good food, to exalt its perfume. Wine draws a deep red line that unites all of these; incidents, miracles, the choice of friends, which, intertwining like a skein of wool, century after century, formed our Tuscan identity, and in some way, our Italian identity.
Francesco Sorelli – Il Bisarno Oltre la Sieve