Wine slurping is in my genes, dammit!
...But for two history buffs with a passion for the tipple, northern Italy has the barbarians to thank for its long wine-making tradition.Luca Sormani, from Como, and Fulvio Pescarolo, from the tiny town of Robbio near Milan, have traced the region's wine culture all the way back to its Celtic roots and have started making it according to ancient methods.
Celtic tribes from farther north -- known to the Romans as “Barbari” -- conquered northern parts of Italy about 2,500 years ago, settled there and started draining marshes, cultivating land and growing vines.
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Standing in a vineyard on a man-made hill in the middle of table-flat rice fields in western Lombardy, Sormani recalled how he spent years studying the history of the area, which led him to the idea of recreating a Celtic farm.“In (the northern towns of) Vigevano and Mortara we live as if we had no history, as if one day we found ourselves here and going to work in Milan. I did not like it. I wanted to find out where we came from, who we were,” said Sormani.
“And not being a philosopher or poet or a writer, being an agronomist, I started my research from agriculture.”
His project took off in 2000 after he met Pescarolo. They used their own savings to build a replica of a Celtic farm, based on ancient manuscripts.
They wanted to relive the history of the Celts by discovering their habits and tastes and, in a typical Italian way, the pleasures that Celts found in food and wine.
Six years later, the pair can enjoy the most treasured fruit of their labors: Celtic wine, produced according to ancient recipes from grapes grown using Celtic methods.
Italy owes wine legacy to Celts, history buffs say - Yahoo! News
