Where else on a given day can you learn how olive oil is made, have four archeologists “crash” a wine tasting and then be invited to the tasting, meet a reknown wine consultant during a visit to a cantina, and meet the person who supplied the wine at Sofia Ford Coppolla’s wedding? Just another day in Southern Italy.

Again, I will follow up with more detailed articles on each of the places visited when I return to the US.

Passannante Michele

We met Antonio Passannante, Michele’s son and husband of Eriminia D’Angelo (see Day 5 blog on Azienda Agricola D’Angelo) at the company’s small processing plant in Rionero in Vulture.  The company produces about 50,000 kilos of olive oil of which 25 to 30% is their own and the balance is produced for local farmers.  During the olive oil production, efforts are made to repurpose most of the remains of the plant.  The leaves from the branches are set aside for local shepherds to feed sheep.  The pomace, or sediments, are used as heating oil.  The “dirty water”, which is created at the end of the olive pressing, is used for fertilizer.  Passannante Michele olive oil company belongs to a consortium of twenty farmers.

Azienda Agricola Michele Laluce

Michele Laluce winery has a small vineyard of six hectares that produces grapes for about 40,000 bottles per year.  Aglianico grape is grown on five and one-half hectares (see photo above) and muscato grape is grown on one-half hectare.  The winery adheres to organic methods in the vineyard and in the production of their wines.  Rose bushes planted in the vineyards (photo at right) serve as a warning of disease that might affect the grape.  The wines age in a variety of ways:  stainless steel tanks, large Slovenian barrels, and smaller French barrels.  During the tour, Michele and his daughter, Maddalena, demonstrated how quickly  wine changes during fermentation.  We contrasted the taste of wine that had been fermenting for just a day with wine that had been fermenting for four days. The reduction of the sugar from day one to day four was strikingly different.  Michele and his four daughters manage the winery.  The oldest daughter, Caterina, is studying economics and manages the winery’s books.  Maddalena studied oenology and is the wine-maker.  Donatella is an agronomist and operates the vineyard’s machinery.  Michela is studying culinary.  During our tasting, four archeologists working in the area stopped by.  Michele and Maddalena welcomed them offered them a glass of wine — another example of what I call Southern Hospitality.

Azienda Agricola Musto Carmelitano

 We met Elisabetta Musto Carmelitano in the midst of a harvest of aglianico grapes. Her father and other workers were unloading crates of grapes into a machine to be de-stemmed and crushed (photo below).  Also during our visit, Fortunato Sebastiano, reknown wine consultant noted for his excellence in the natural production of wine, stopped by to examine the progress of fermenting grapes.  It was hectic and we were most appreciative that Elisabetta and Fortunato took some time to provide a wine tasting and answer our questions.  The winery produces between 2o,000 to 25,000 bottles of wine per year.  It also produces 19,000 kilos of fermented grapes to sell to local producers.  The vineyard has been in the family for a couple generations and before the first bottling in 2007, the family sold grapes to other producers.  Elisabetta uses stainless and cement tanks for both fermentation and aging.  She will use oak as well for aging, but only for a small amount of her wines. She produces a special Aglianico del Vulture with no sulfites.

 Azienda Vinicola Paternoster

Paternoster winery was the first to bottle Aglianico del Vulture.  This year the winery celebrated its 90th anniversary.  We met with the fourth generation wine-maker, Vito Paternoster.  This historic winery abides by sustainable viticulture, but only has one of its four Aglianico del Vulture wines certified as organic.  Vito explained that the three wines that are not certified  had been bottled for many years before organic certification was available. The winery did not want to disrupt the market for these three wines by suddenly classifying them as organic.  All the grapes, irrespective of whether they are certified organic, are treated the same both in the vineyard and during production.  Only sulfur and copper are used in the vineyards and nitrogen is used to move the wine to be bottled, rather than a pump, to reduce the stress on the wine.  The winery uses a soft press method in which the gravity from the weight of the grapes creates the juice for fermentation.  The winery uses a regular press on the sediments from the soft press and adds the resulting juice to the soft press juice. A traditional producer, Paternoster winery uses only oak for aging; a 5,000 liter Slovenian barrel and four different types of French oak.  Hollywood director Francis Ford Coppola selected Parternoster’s wines for his daughter Sofia’s wedding, held in Bernalda, Matera, Basilicata. I said to Vito that I shook the hand that shook Francis Ford Coppola’s hand.