Ciro had promised to tell me about two vineyards that he buys wine from and that we could visit for wine tasting and buying. Both of these are great hobbies of mine, so I was keen to meet up with him at 08:00. Our Europe map is not detailed enough to locate the vineyards but with the addresses provided by Ciro, we will be able to find them using the Garmin.
Ciro is submitting a paper to an international conference that will be held early next year. It has to be submitted in English and he asked me if I would be willing to check it over – from an English point of view, not an academic point of view! Ciro's English is excellent and we made very few corrections but it was very interesting to read even the incomplete paper. Ciro has proposed a method of costing the impact on the environment of an action such as the destruction of the Brazilian rainforest in order to grow crops. He will be publishing the paper later on his blog (http://ecosistemi.blogspot.com/) and there is already material on there, so go and take a look. I am looking forward to being able to read the finished paper. Ciro also put forward a very thought-provoking and persuasive argument that, in the light of world population growth, society needs to start to design cities to minimise the effect on the environment. This is likely to mean the creation of new cities in order to ensure that the population is close to the services and employment that it requires thus minimising travel and energy use. This is particularly relevant in the UK where, I would suggest, public transport is poor and the average distance between home and work is high. That combined with the distance travelled in private transport for services (shopping, schools etc.) and our very congested roads, must make us very inefficient in fuel usage.
I can honestly say that this is the first time that I have ever met an environmental economist running an organic farm and it was great! Ciro was not only a very pleasant person, he was one of the rare breed of academics with real practical knowledge. I hope that we will be able to call back in March when we intend to come back through Italy so that we can find out how the paper was received. We will also ensure that it is at a weekend so that we can taste the fruits of his labour. I only hope that Ciro will forgive me for dropping the trap door of the waste tank into the tank!
Before we left, we did a quick tour of the farm to see all of the animals. The wild boar were great and the buffalo just stood with their noses in the air looking very snooty. They were very large and I didn't fancy the idea of milking them!
We set off from La Via Antigua and the speedometer was working! We decided to visit Ciro's first recommendation of the Ornella Molon vineyard at Campo di Pietra. We arrived to the minute at the time that they closed for their two-hour lunch break. There wasn't much to see in the village but we noticed that the 'Osteria' attached to the winery was very popular, especially with manual workers – lorry drivers, builders etc. This is normally the sign of a restaurant that serves good food at reasonable prices and so we went in. There were no menus, just a set meal with three choices for first and main courses. Water was included in the price and probably wine as well, although we stuck with water. For the first course I had penne with bacon and tomato sauce and Jane had a vegetable soup. For the second course, I had liver and onions with spinach and Jane had escalope of pork with wild mushrooms and peas. It was very good quality food and, at 10 euros each, very good value.
The winery was now open and we were able to test the wines. We only had one sample of each wine between us and as I was driving, Jane had to drink more than me (a real hardship!). Their young, fresh wines were very good but we were not impressed by their barrel-aged wines. These were very deep in colour but were somehow too strongly flavoured. We came away with three bottles of their Merlot and three of their Traminer. The latter is a beautifully fragrant wine similar to the Alsace Gewurztraminer but without the spice of the Alsace wine.
The journey to the Venice campsite was not the most exciting that we have had – huge number of lorries and very congested motorway. The approach to the campsite ('Camping Fusina') is not inspiring as it is highly industrial and also one of the main lorry routes to the port. However, providing that you look forward from our pitch, the view is really good – over the lagoon to Venice. Unfortunately, Venice is distinctly lacking in hills, so it appears only as a small line on the horizon. The good news is that the ferry to Venice leaves from a pier only approx. 100 metres from the campsite entrance. Tomorrow it is Venice re-visted – hopefully warmer than it was when we visited it in December 2005.
Photos: Wild Boar in heaven; Inquisitive pig; Snooty buffalo.
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