Cantina argiano | Brunello di Montalcino 2017
Intern
In fall 2017, I was lucky to join the team at Cantina Argiano, helping out in the winery, drawing on my infamous knowledge about Riesling harvests …
Well not quite, I was rather what the ballboy is to a great Tennis match:
“Though non-essential, the ballboy’s activity helps to speed up play by reducing the amount of inactive time.” (Wikipedia, 2021)
Exactly. There I was, standing observantly in the background, always ready for a sprint, while supplying and retrieving items and tools to the players among tanks and casks.
Yep, it’s off-track, but talking about tennis, you gotta read David Foster Wallace’s description of Federer published 2006 in the New York Times. It’s probably the only time I’ve shed tears when reading an article about sports.. someone hitting a fluffy yellow ball to be precise..
Seriously, even for non tennis aficionados, it’s a mesmerizing read! A study of Federer’s movements akin to a religious experience. Amen.
Great insights from my internship
Some take blood samples, while others do something actually indispensable such as measuring lactic acid levels to closely monitor the difficult but budding great 2017 Brunello..
Among helping to fill tanks, gentle pump-overs, topping up casks, cleaning and blending wine, I was super delighted when the Winemaker’s assistant Roberto offered me to shadow him in one of his daily tasks, of both tasting and measuring various elements of the red wines specimens in their own lab.
Not only was this a super instructive experience, but also what I personally endorse.
An undying love for the rigor and precision of science, without abdicating the spirit of the arts. Essentially, an amalgamation of two extremes into an equilibrium: technicity and liberation.
Healthy vinyards, organic certification, indigenous yeast, no filtring, fining, nor cold stabilization, no temperature control. Yet: cutting-edge pumps (virtually no compression of fluid), a tiny addition of sulphur during bottling and daily lab results monitoring the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations of each respective tank.
