motorbike guy wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 2:58 pm

enframed wrote: Tue Nov 09, 2021 8:21 pm

I love Italy but have yet to visit the south or the islands. Next year...

Was so good to be someplace else.

I can highly recommend Sardinia. Ii want to go back quite badly.

I was hoping to go to the south and islands. Next trip I hope. From what I have seen I could live there easily.

Dave N. wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 11:15 am My band played some shows in Northern Italy a few years ago. I’ve never felt so underdressed in my life.

Oh great, I'm pretty much underdressed everywhere but the rural US already. This should be interesting.
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Depends where in northern Italy. North of Trento is basically Austria, they all look like mountain men: puffy jackets and generally louder clothes. By the time you hit Verona or Venice (in the east) yeah, people have fucking style. I love middle aged Italian women. Goddamn. They wear it.

AdamN wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 1:32 pm Reading all these posts about Northern Italy hurt me lol. I lived in Bolzano and Trento for about five years. It's not an easy life there, but well worth it.

Not easy how? Money?

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 6:21 pm
Enframed, if you ever make it to Sicily, I have some recommendations. Also seconding Sardinia. Did you happen to drop in on Angiolino Maule (close to Vicenza, actually) in the Veneto? He and his sons are high on my list of vignerons. And by the way, I am totally the kind of fiend who needs four doppi to get going in the morning, and I've never once been bounced from a cafe!

I had a great time and ate well in Bergamo in Northern Italy. I hope the place has regained its spirit, having been hit so hard early in the pandemic. It's not exactly a huge metropolis.

Did not go to Maule. The importer I work for shares a lot with Doug Polaner. We are classic Italian, small producer (and a few co-ops) portfolio with low intervention, but we are not a "natural" portfolio. We visited all of our producers in the Tre Venezie. If you want a list I can PM you, most are in NY. All are organic minimum (as much as is possible by law, see flavescenza dorata, which no on wants to talk about). They all use a little sulfur.

enframed wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 9:25 pm

AdamN wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 1:32 pm Reading all these posts about Northern Italy hurt me lol. I lived in Bolzano and Trento for about five years. It's not an easy life there, but well worth it.

Not easy how? Money?

That's the reason I left. Earning under €20k a year isn't fun.

There are a LOT of Italians in the UK.

enframed wrote:

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 6:21 pm
Enframed, if you ever make it to Sicily, I have some recommendations. Also seconding Sardinia. Did you happen to drop in on Angiolino Maule (close to Vicenza, actually) in the Veneto? He and his sons are high on my list of vignerons. And by the way, I am totally the kind of fiend who needs four doppi to get going in the morning, and I've never once been bounced from a cafe!

I had a great time and ate well in Bergamo in Northern Italy. I hope the place has regained its spirit, having been hit so hard early in the pandemic. It's not exactly a huge metropolis.

Did not go to Maule. The importer I work for shares a lot with Doug Polaner. We are classic Italian, small producer (and a few co-ops) portfolio with low intervention, but we are not a "natural" portfolio. We visited all of our producers in the Tre Venezie. If you want a list I can PM you, most are in NY. All are organic minimum (as much as is possible by law, see flavescenza dorata, which no on wants to talk about). They all use a little sulfur.

Oh, I like a lot about the Polaner portfolio, even if all the natty wine kids are too cool (or too naive?) to appreciate it. See also: Rosenthal and Kermit Lynch. I cut my teeth on that stuff. In fact, I think Polaner brings in Calabretta, which was probably my favorite winery visit in Sicily.

For me, Maule is not so different. Ok, maybe a little freakier. But he was producing natural wine before that term was all over the place, and he claims to hate orange wine despite making an awfully great one (Pico).

Flavescenza dorata is one of several reasons why there is so little natural wine in Piemonte, right?

And I certainly don't mind a little SO2 when it's absolutely necessary to keep things civilized.

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Thu Nov 11, 2021 2:47 pm
Oh, I like a lot about the Polaner portfolio, even if all the natty wine kids are too cool (or too naive?) to appreciate it. See also: Rosenthal and Kermit Lynch. I cut my teeth on that stuff. In fact, I think Polaner brings in Calabretta, which was probably my favorite winery visit in Sicily.

For me, Maule is not so different. Ok, maybe a little freakier. But he was producing natural wine before that term was all over the place, and he claims to hate orange wine despite making an awfully great one (Pico).

Flavescenza dorata is one of several reasons why there is so little natural wine in Piemonte, right?

And I certainly don't mind a little SO2 when it's absolutely necessary to keep things civilized.

Yes, flavescenza dorata is devastating vineyards in Piemonte, including to the east in Tortona; it's making its way up to Sudtirol, it is in Valtellina and Alta Piemonte. Treviso area has been hit hard as well.

Certain grapes are more susceptible than others. The Italian government mandates, where necessary, that some treatment for it be used, and they test for it in the vineyard. So everyone who has to is doing something to treat for the pest.

The treatment authorized under organic certification (pyrethrin) kills everything it touches insect-wise, including bees, so wineries that were certified are dropping that to use another product that is focused on the particular pest and does not kill bees.

enframed wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 9:25 pm

AdamN wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 1:32 pm Reading all these posts about Northern Italy hurt me lol. I lived in Bolzano and Trento for about five years. It's not an easy life there, but well worth it.

Not easy how? Money?

Yeah, like Andyman already alluded to, salaries are low there. I worked at a research center and made about 30,000 euros per year. Finding housing is a pain in the ass, especially when you're not fluent in Italian and/or German right when you move there. I lived with a couple, both coworkers, in their nice two bedroom apartment in the center of Bolzano right off the bat for three months. That was very nice and understanding of them to do this, they didn't need the extra money and could have been more like my American friends. After that, I was on my own. I had a single room with a shared bathroom with another single room in a quasi-dorm, an older guy who smoked in his room and the smell that filled our little vestibule and into the hallway. The research center and free university that were founded there in the 90s didn't result in additional housing being built, so there's a constant stream of hundreds of other people either employed at the research center or university looking for just a bedroom in an apartment. I ended up in Trento, because that's where my best Italian friend/coworker lived, and we got really lucky in finding a really nice apartment in central Trento, a block from the duomo. The old woman who owned it was moved into a facility for people with Alzheimer's. Her two children squabbled in court over who would get the apartment, and the judge ruled that it should be put up as a rental. Before that, we lived in a three bedroom rowhouse in Trento, where I shared a bathroom with a complete stranger to me and my friend (occurs when housing is restricted). The bathroom walls had quite the collection of black mold. Thankfully, that only lasted three months.

I have already made my way through the Italian bureaucracy once in regards to getting my ducks in a row for my permesso di soggiorno and research/education visa. I made friends with people at work who have parents that can pull some strings. I strongly tempted to move back there when I'm done working in the US. I became fluent in Italian by taking courses at the free university, plus tandem conversations with coworkers' boyfriends/girlfriends that wanted to learn English. Seems impossible right now where I'm at but I will dream that dream.

Toulouse, a great city break.

Iceland was an amazing adventure. We hiked a volcano. We saw the northern lights. We ate fermented shark. We hiked a glacier and did a bit of ice climbing. We stayed part of the time in a grain silo that had been converted into a series of apartments. We went to the Secret Lagoon. (My fiancee and I didn't go to the Blue Lagoon, the other members of our family did the day before we arrived, where the winds were apparently really strong.)