Vino da Mino

Vino da Mino in Sieci is no more. Our drive by, drive in wine pumpsmith is calling it a day. He started looking after the son’s draught wine shop five years ago waiting for his pension to be sorted. Five years later he is finally free to focus on the 100-seat community theatre he helps run, to take up the guitar again, walk the dog and lose a bit of weight and not have to travel to the mountain house at Abetone in the busy weekends.

A lovely bloke, squat and strong with a fury at Italy’s corruption and graft that was palpable and eloquently signed in gestures that’d make an Anglo-Saxon blush.

I’ll miss him and his excellent Morellino di Scansano. We bought the last box and a taste of young Amarone (Amarosso). .

Beautiful weather again.

These are old style vines kept by two brothers near us. All done in the old peasant way with willow ties, stripped chestnut poles and field maples as straining posts. Hats off. And the steel grid fencing to keep the bloody boar out with electric fence strands on top to deter the deer.