Near Amelia, Open Wine Cellars

Italians are known for opening home and hearts to visitors and at the end of May, wine cellars all over Italy throw open cantina doors to welcome visitors into their cellars and vineyards, uncorking bottles of crisp whites and robust reds for the thousands joining in on the festival, Cantine Aperte (“Open Cellars”). Launched in 1993 by the Movimento Turismo Vino, Cantine Aperte is targeted at the diffusion of the culture of wine and the promotion of familiarity with Italy’s great wine regions. Bringing to life the slogan “Vedi che bevi” (“See what you drink”), over nine hundred Italian wine cellars – nearly fifty just in Umbria – welcomed more than a million visitors for the past two week-ends. In Umbria, le cantine welcomed an estimated 70, 000 visitors over two week-ends rich in events.

Umbria’s cantine offer guided vineryard walks with an agronomist, jazz concerts, literary events associated with wine, art shows, tastings of territory foods best associated with their wines, helicopter rides over the vineyards at one Umbrian cellar and a bocce tournament in the vineyards of another. We headed to Cantine Zanchi, outside of the walled medieval hill town of Amelia in southern Umbria (close to the Latium border), brilliant green vineyards fanning out down the hill in front of the cellars in stark contrast to a slate gray sky.

We joined a few others at the entrance table, paying a small fee for our wine glass in cloth bag which we’d use to taste wine varieties (and then take home) and for our enometro (literally, “wine measure” , i.e., chits for wines we’d taste). Nearby, a clutch of animated young people – black cloth wine pouches around their necks – shared chuckles and chats between wine sips and all shouted an enthusiastic “si!” when I asked for group photo. And as I took a shot of the emerald green vineyard expanse below us – a red tractor adding a color splash – a smiling young couple from the group came over to hand me a goblet of red wine with a “grazie della foto.”

I tried to decline the wine offer but… refusals refused: “Devi assaggiare questo passito,” curly-haired Alessandro insisted, urging me to taste the vineyard sweet wine. His companion, Paola, nodded agreement and Alessandro added, “You shouldn’t start a wine-tasting with a dessert wine, but we’re leaving now and we wanted to share a taste of our last wine, e cantina specialty.” As we talked over wines with this young couple from Amelia, they told us that they had known the Zanchis and appreciated their wines for years.

We found out why inside the cellars, where sommeliers served wines in front of huge casks and wine vats. We sipped an Umbrian white, trebbiano, tried the malvasia and then moved on the indigenous red of the Amelia area, the ciliegiolo. And no better way to appreciate it than while munching a grilled sausage: Ennio, who’s worked the vineyards for over forty years with the Zanchis, was on the grill that day, handling the sausages. Young Erica served them up with slices of bread, 1 Euro apiece – and a sign on her table showed that the fee was a fund-raiser for sustenance of Kosovo orphans.

Before leaving, we chatted with Lores Zanchi and papa’ Leonardo whose own had cultivated vineyards on their land over forty years ago. Lores led us through ancient wooded doors into the underground cellar to view the immense French oak casks, home to the most prized aged wines. And she talked enthusiastically about the family wine research project: Cantine Zanchi are still cultivating Nonno’s grape varieties but since 2008, the family has joined with the agronomy faculty of the Universita’ di Perugia in experimental cultivation of ancient grape varieties of the territory as well. Their focus: restoration of ancient varieties unknown (until recently) among the over six hundred varieties raised in Italy.

Next year – at Cantine Aperte – maybe we’ll be lucky enough to try one of the “resurrected” varietals

Read about a past enjoyment of Cantine Aperte