This Meal Marks The Termination Of My Daily Tasks; Nothing Serious Is
Allowed To Engage My Attention, Once That Repast
Is ended; I call for a
chair and sit down at one of the small marble-topped tables in the
Open
street and watch the crowd as it floats around me, smoking a Neapolitan
cigar and imbibing, alternately, ices and black coffee until, towards
midnight, a final bottle of vino di Ciro is uncorked - fit seal for the
labours of the day.
One might say much in praise of Calabrian wine. The land is full of
pleasant surprises for the cenophilist, and one of these days I hope to
embody my experiences in the publication of a wine-chart of the province
with descriptive text running alongside - the purchasers of which, if
few, will certainly be of the right kind. The good Dr. Barth - all praise
to him! - has already done something of the kind for certain parts of
Italy, but does not so much as mention Calabria. And yet here nearly
every village has its own type of wine and every self-respecting family
its own peculiar method of preparation, little known though they be
outside the place of production, on account of the octroi laws which
strangle internal trade and remove all stimulus to manufacture a good
article for export. This wine of Ciro, for instance, is purest nectar,
and so is that which grows still nearer at hand in the classical vale of
the Neto and was praised, long ago, by old Pliny; and so are at least
two dozen more. For even as Gregorovius says that the smallest Italian
community possesses its duly informed antiquarian, if you can but put
your hand upon him, so, I may be allowed to add, every little place
hereabouts can boast of at least one individual who will give you good
wine, provided - provided you go properly to work to find him.
Now although, when young, the Calabrian Bacchus has a wild-eyed beaute
du diable which appeals to one's expansive moods, he already begins to
totter, at seven years of age, in sour, decrepit eld. To pounce upon him
at the psychological moment, to discover in whose cool and cobwebby
cellar he is dreaming out his golden summer of manhood - that is what a
foreigner can never, never hope to achieve, without competent local aid.
To this end, I generally apply to the priests; not because they are the
greatest drunkards (far from it; they are mildly epicurean, or even
abstemious) but by reason of their unrivalled knowledge of
personalities. They know exactly who has been able to keep his liquor of
such and such a year, and who has been obliged to sell or partially
adulterate it; they know, from the confessional of the wives, the why
and wherefore of all such private family affairs and share, with the
chemist, the gift of seeing furthest into the tangled web of home life.
They are "gialosi," however, of these acquirements, and must be
approached in the right spirit - a spirit of humility.
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