Читать книгу The World of Sicilian Wine - Bill Nesto - Страница 11

PREFACE

Frances Di Savino, my wife, and I explored the island of Sicily for two weeks in June of 2008. I was there to research an article about Sicilian wine. Fran was with me because we do almost everything together, and we both love Italy. I say almost everything since the hand that writes this preface is my own. But she is at my side. This is our introduction to our book.

We were astounded by the enthusiasm of the Sicilians we met. Visits to vineyards and wineries and sips of wine inevitably began with, ended with, and were blended into visits to historical sites and breathtaking panoramas and tastes of the vibrant flavors of produce and cuisine. We came back to Boston knowing that there was a compelling story to tell, a book to be written, and many returns to Sicily in the near future.

The book was also in our genes. Fran and I are both 100 percent southern Italian by ancestry. I am 50 percent Sicilian. My ancestors on my mother’s side came to New York from Ragusa. Fran’s ancestry comes from elsewhere down the boot. She feels Sicilian, though. We played with the possibility that her Saporito ancestors came to Campania by way of Sicily. In fact, Saporitos have thrived on the island since the thirteenth century.

Fran’s avid interest in Latin and Greek in high school led her to make her first pilgrimage to Italy with her schoolmates and her Latin teacher. She returned to Florence to study Medieval and Renaissance history and art. Of course, she became fluent in Italian. She speaks Italian so well that Italians ask her where she comes from in Italy.

After being a fine arts painter, I became interested in food and then wine and eventually became a sommelier, wine journalist, and Master of Wine. I gravitated to Italian wine because I felt more at home in Italy than in France, my other favorite wine destination. After my many visits, I speak Italian too. Though Italians understand me, they ask me where I come from in the United States.

Seeing our task in front of us, we made our plan. Fran took on the challenge of revealing the historical and cultural dimensions of Sicilian wine. She would write the first chapter to introduce readers to the history of Sicilian wine, set within the context of Sicilian culture through the mid-eighteenth century. As the wine expert, I would describe and analyze the Sicilian wine industry from the late eighteenth century to the present day. Hence, in the text, the I associated with tasting notes always refers to me. Furthermore, the opinions expressed about wine regions, wine producers, and their wines are mine and mine alone.

Woven throughout the book are three vignettes. We profiled three Sicilian winegrowers who through their work show their own love for Sicily. In their wines, we can taste and enjoy the genuine flavors of Sicily. I wrote the first two vignettes. Fran wrote the final one, set on Etna, and the afterword, finishing our journey as we had begun.

It has been a joyous journey.

Bill Nesto, MW

Whatever I shall have reported to you, I submit for you to correct or to adorn with the roses of your knowledge, so that like a vine cultivated and watered with the care of your knowledge, it may, yielding the most copious fruit, be rendered worthy of greater praise and gratitude. (Geoffrey Malaterra, The Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily and of His Brother Duke Robert Guiscard, 44)

The monk Geoffrey Malaterra came as a foreigner to Catania at the end of the eleventh century. He was born north of the Alps and resettled in Sicily as part of the Norman conquest of Sicily ending in 1090. In a prefatory letter to The Deeds of Count Roger, Geoffrey appeals to the nobler instincts of his future readers and critics. We humbly do the same.

Bill Nesto, MW, and Frances Di Savino