The vineyard is resting. Everything is still. The shoots no longer put up a fight or resistance to the energetic pruning.
This is the story of the vineyard: an orderly procession of minutes, hours and days, of hands that move from one task to the next, interspersed only by the silent and seemingly powerless presence of time.
Precious time.
Everything’s quiet today.
No hands bend back the shoots, no feet tread the earth, there is no shouting in the biting cold between the rows of vines. That would be too much for this island in Romagna. A smattering of peach blossom can be glimpsed, even though down there, beyond Modigliana, the hills are still covered with snow.
It’s not time yet.
Surrounded by the beauty of this place, you inevitably think of the bond with the wine that will come. Among the stalks you can still hear the sound of the shears as they cut the hardest, most stubborn branches. Still lying there on the ground.
We cut back the vines to give them structure, the same structure that will give us the new wine, whose many hues and the notes of its aromas we will never know, despite our efforts, experience and knowledge.
This vintage is different from the previous one and will be different from the next one. Every time you start over, it’s all the same yet it’s all new: an extra day of rain, an unexpected cold snap, a sudden heatwave.
The land should never be left alone.
The vineyard should be listened to, observed and tended. Every day, even when everything seems to stand still, patient hands shape the vines that change just as the seasons change. You cut it back to let it grow, you weaken it to give it strength.
Everything’s quiet today.
It looks as if time has stood still. But the vineyard is alive, and although it looks like nothing is happening, it is transforming. Bare stumps, organic beings, which germinate, feed and grow in silence as time passes.
So maybe everything’s quiet today is a paradox.
The vineyard is waiting for time. Time that passes slowly. Time that changes.
Rain, sun, dry, humic.
Wind. Snow.
Here is the wine we are waiting for. The gift.
The vineyard’s gift for having protected, tended and taken care of it. For having given it a destiny.
“What do we do now then?” I ask.
“Nothing.” “We wait”.
This is Torre.
