The fall is one of the best times to visit Italy. As the days shorten and the weather cools, crowds are thinning, prices and temperatures are dropping. Not only is the weather cooler, the cities are far less crowded. It’s also the season for some of the best food festivals in Italy, including the many festivals surrounding vineyards and truffles.
One of the most anticipated events of the season is the grape harvest, at the end of September. Drive through the countryside in any Italian region during that time and chances are that you will come across groups of people harvesting grapes to make wine.
Grape-picking is just the first step and it is a celebrated occasion throughout Italy, the exact dates varies from one year to the other, depending on when the grapes are ready. For the grape harvesting, called vendemmia, extended families and friends get together, in the early morning hours, snipping grapes off the vines and depositing them into large tubs or other containers.
After hours of hard work among the grapevines, the harvesters share a feast prepared just for the occasion, much like our American Thanksgiving, with its show of appreciation for the year’s crops.
According to Bloomberg.com, Italy’s wine-grape growers expect a good harvest this fall, with the northern Piedmont and Trentino regions poised to produce an “excellent” crop.
Overall, Italy will produce about 46.5 million hectoliters (1.2 billion gallons) of wine, according to Rome-based growers’ lobby Confagricoltura. “The 2010 harvest will be a good year in terms of quantity and quality”. While weather changes could still affect crops this month, “both climactic conditions and signs from the vineyards allow us to be optimistic about the quality of the new wines.”
The best harvests will probably be in Piedmont, Umbria and Trentino, according to the release. The central Tuscany region, famous for Chianti red wine, will have a “good to excellent harvest,” as will southern areas such as Puglia and Sicily, Confagricoltura said.
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