vineyard interview.

His name is Aldobrandino, but I call him “Aldo,” like his friends and family do. He lives on the Ghirlandaio family vineyard, in the Tuscan countryside near San Gimignano. After 87 years, this inheritance rests completely under his charge, and he proudly leads me through his cultivated aisles of interconnected vines and enormous grape clusters. After a settling afternoon of effortless dialogue and generous samplings, both of the dark juicy fruit and their fermented elixir, I route our conversation to a continually burning question…

Aldo: The harvest is good this year. We always do our best, but you just never know with Her… (Aldo faintly gestures to the sky and smiles)

Tired, we sit down in the middle of a row between thick vines.

Aldo: Rhythm. It is only a rhythm. We always do the best we can, and respond to the elements we cannot control…sometimes we lose more crops than we want. But there’ll be more next season. Grapes keep growing.  –Here, have a few more.

Me: Thanks. They’re so delicious...  (He smiles.)

Aldo: And if I lose too much, I know my family will help me out, just like I helped Paulo last October when he produced little harvest.

(From an earlier conversation, I know that “family” really means the surrounding farms and farmers. The Ghirlandaios live in a deeply interdependent community…

After a short lull, I decide to be blunt.)

Me: Aldo, I have been so many places this semester… But when I travel, I always think about the same kind of question, and I wish I could ask it to everyone I see. Maybe you have your own answer. But after all these years, what would you say our purpose is?

Aldo: (he chuckles warmly, then finally speaks after a drawn-out silence)

…. I’ve been doing this whole life. Just like my father, and his father, and his father. This…I love. (he leans over and gently grabs a vine)

See these leaves? They’re young. Soon, we’ll have to cut them off, though, along with the grapes. But the roots (pointing to the dirt) these roots are older than me! Much older. Molto vecchio. They know my great Nonno, and I have only met his picture. The one hanging in the kitchen, did you see it?

ME: Yeah, I think so.

Aldo: Well he was good friends with these roots. They’ve been here forever. They hold the whole crop together. And even when the young grapes grow up, and get pressed into our vino, you can still taste the roots and soil. These roots are important…to everything.

Me: Interesting… I like that. Have you ever left the country?

Aldo: I have.  Yes, I left around 1941 for about two years. I left these beautiful hills to fight in the war. That is how I met Elizabeth. (he looks at me for the first time and smiles) But I never stopped missing this place. My home. My soil. My Nonno’s soil.

Me: …But I heard that lots of people WANT to leave… just like I did. From my town. I wanted to come here, to see another world. I heard they sometimes feel trapped in these fields, and in these villages. I thought you might feel the same way…

Aldo: (he’s already shaking his head) Bah… they do. A lot of my amici could not wait to enlist. All they wanted to do was leave-to get out! And I enjoyed my time in other countries… But I wanted to come back, too. And I wanted to bring her with me. She didn’t understand why for a long time… but now she gets it. Now she loves these roots too. And she’s made them better.

I look at the flimsy sun-stained cap that now rests in his lap, then up at the tiny tractor standing in a field beyond an opening in the lush “hallway” where we sit. These images in my line of sight only seemed to emphasize the tense juxtaposition of my thoughts….

Me: But things are changing, they always are. I bet that’s why people want to leave. Like the kids I saw in Pitigliano. They want to get out and see what else is going on. They want to keep up. They want to figure out what bigger life is….somewhere else…

Aldo: That is true. And Roberto is the same. Roberto, my son-I hope for you to meet him. He is always asking your same questions with his eyes. He does not want to live here forever.

Me: Will you let him go?

Aldo: Of course! It is not bad to journey. My grapes travel in their bottles all the way to America. But they take the flavor of their roots with them. Without the roots, they will not grow correctly. They will not make sense. Without the roots, they will be no different from your grape juice, and when you drink them, you will only think of your grocery store, not my Nonno. (he sighs and picks up some dirt that runs back through his fingers) These roots are important.

Me: I’m starting to see that…

 After wiping his hand on is faded blue button-up shirt, he takes a deep breath and sits back. Then, patting my head he says,

Aldo: Start with your roots.

So life is about roots, the reason you are who you are, and where you are. It’s about adapting to change, yet valuing the foundation of tradition. It’s about a shaping of character, and contentment in simplicity.

However, I still wonder at (and even envy) this resolve.

I’m not sure that Aldo’s words of wisdom will subdue internal longing to seek and explore that forever sits inside. 

But for now, I don’t think it has to…