Wild Boar Hunt

Another communiqué from Domenico, whom I begin to detest. Why can’t good things happen to moderately good people? Why do they always happen to callow people who know so little of life and pain?

 

Tonight Lorenzo took me to San Gemignano. Calm down, Terry, I know you hated the town last summer but we arrive at the restaurant, very good priced, Il Pino, around 9 pm and the streets were almost deserted. All the pullman [tour buses] were gone to bed.  We ate well there and had a very nice elegant  bottle of Chianti Classico for just 18 € (!!), I told Lorenzo and Valentina, his girl, that I wonder if you would recognise this as Chianti because it seems to be very different by the time it gets to America. Costs much more and is not so good.  Do they play with the wine before it gets to

USA

? Or maybe the label gets mixed up, eh?

Well anyway we walked around the beautiful town and it was magical in the late evening, the stars above and a few tourists, not too many, in the gelaterie and bars and restaurants. The air was smelling of tiglio [linden] flowers and ginestra [broom]. After we say good night to Valentina, who live just outside the walls, we went back to the area of Le Fonti. We stop at a little bar owned by a personaggio, a character, name Gino, who also work all day at Le Fonti, then goes into his field and vineyard till supper, and then at the bar until 2 am or something like that. The man is almost 80 but looks very tanned and healthy. He seem to be sort of a ballbreaker but all the people of the area seem to love him. 

 

Interesting: Lorenzo told me that young people, even 16 years, go to bar and drink a big glass of vinsanto. I saw this with my own eyes. This is a

Siena

tradition, and we are in

province

of

Siena

, but Lorenzo a Florentine says it never happen like that in

Florence

. Why? It just doesn’t. E così è l’Italia.

 

After that Lorenzo went off road to look for wild pigs and deers and stuff, and he saw a big daino or deer but I didn’t. He chase after him and then spunned around in the wild oats [that’s correct, but the many ironies of this phrase of course elude Dom] and went after cinghiale real fast in the olive groves and beside the fields, also hunting for fox, which Lorenzo said have a trail that leads right up the hill by the workshop of the Azienda Le Fonti. Sorry no photo.  I thought I would lose my fillings but I hold on and it was very exciting! I was laughing like a lunatic, it was so much fun, especially when I thought it would crash into an olive tree or something equally hard. Quindi [So] forget the pictures!

 

Tomorrow before I go to

Florence

to meet with Paolo and Tony, Lorenzo promised me that we would go to Poggibonsi to have a traditional Tuscan breakfast, the kind Gino have each day: a special salumeria and bread, plus a little wine and then a coffee with a little grappa. I wonder how you can work like that, but look at Gino, who work about 20 hours a day. No lie. Well, the rhythm is slower than at

New York

or some place big-time like that. Or even

Rome

, which is not at all like

New York

or

London

. 

 

Did I say I love this place? Or is it too obvious?