This is a view from the vineyards of the Villa Barbaro in Maser (Treviso), still privately owned. Since the time of Palladio wine has had an important role in the life and economy of the villa. Grapes fom the ancient winery are grown according to the strict regulations of eco-compatible agriculture in the 33 hectares of carefully selected vineyards at the heart of the 230 hectares estate that surrounds the villa. The vineyards are cultivated with high density techniques in order to obtain a very low yield per plant. Particular care is taken in ensuring the ideal proportion of 1.2 square meters of green surface per kilogram of grape produced. The traditional varieties Merlot, Cabernet, Chardonnay, Prosecco and Verduzzo are hand picked and then processed with the utmost attention. I had the privilege of sampling these excellent wines, and even if fog has recently haunting our region much less, the wine made me remember a poem I had to learn by heart at the primary school, San Martino (St. Martin's Day, our Indian summer) by Carducci. I made the translation of the first half of this short poem I hope you'll enjoy. BTW Carducci was a drinking mate of my maternal great-grandfather. They used to spend the evening talking badly of the church, and with good reason, since my great-grandad's mom had been convinced by the nuns to bequeath everything to them and leave nothing to him. He had just learned the sad news from the solicitor, when he met a line of seminarians just outside the Old Bridge in Florence. Incensed, he furiously thrashed them with his walking stick! La nebbia a gl'irti colli/piovigginando sale,/e sotto il maestrale/urla e biancheggia il mar;/ma per le vie del borgo/dal ribollir de' tini/va l'aspro odor dei vini/l'anime a rallegrar. Fog the steep hills/drizzling rises/and under the mistral/screams and whitens the sea;/but along the village streets/from the frothing vats/the sour smell of wine/All souls cheers up. Giosu�¨ Carducci (1835-1907) revived Petrarch's vision of poet as prophet, and became the unofficial national poet of a unified Italy, receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1906. He was born in Val di Castello in Tuscany, where his father was a doctor and a member of the Carbonari, a freemason-like group that advocated unification. Politics obliged the family to move several times in his boyhood to escape political persecution. Until appointed professor of Italian literature at Bologna, Carducci had many financial difficulties. But Carducci turned himself into an energetic and popular lecturer, an uncompromising literary critic and then a leading opponent of church power (until 1870 the State of the Church still existed and the Pope had done his worse to prevent Italian unification). His Jacobin verses created many controversies in the 1860s and 70s, though he had settled into supporting the new Italian Savoia monarchy by 1890, when he was made a senator for life. In his last years, Carducci was active in politics, proselytizing for Italian influence and territorial expansion. Thank you for your kind comments.