Aaron Kenter

We arrived at Ev and Claudia’s vineyard near Todi in Umbria on March 1st. The past ten days have just flown by. I can’t believe that it is a full month now that we have been gone.

I have not written anything about our time here so far, so I will now get you up to date on the facts. Ev and Claudia bought this piece of property seven years ago. Before then it was abandoned and so was unsuitable for living in when they first bought it. Ev is 58 and an American and said that when he sold his house in California he thought that he would be able to retire. Instead, he bought this house and literally emptied his bank account to do so. As a result, he has continued to work in order to fund the restoration of the house and to create a vineyard. Claudia is originally from Sicily but has moved around a lot. They are both extremely nice. I really had no idea what to expect from a HelpX host and did not know if I should expect to be treated as an employee or what. Ev and Claudia treat us like guests for which I am very grateful.

Their main project at the moment is growing a vineyard on their property. When they bought the place, there were some vines already but only a few. They had originally only planned to restore the house and had no plans for growing grapes and making wines. A neighbor asked them, during the early stages of the restoration, if he could make wine out of their grapes. They consented and he gave them some of this product. After tasting it, they agreed that it was awful and, Ev told us, he decided that he was certain he could make better wine on his own. He gave it a try and it turned out well. They currently grow enough grapes to produce about one barrel a year into wine (there are 333 bottles of wine in a barrel). The wine they make is very good (I can tell you from experience).

They really enjoyed the whole wine making process and, to make a long story short, they decided to try selling their wine commercially. With the help of a few friends they worked out a business plan that, if successful, ought to allow Ev to quit his current job and earn enough money from wine making alone.

This season they were hoping to plant 2,100 vines and were hoping that we would help in the planting process. Sadly, however, we have been unable to do so. In the ten days that we have been hear seven have been rainy. One day it even snowed (which is extremely rare for this area at this time)! This is a real set back for them, yet the weather is supposed to improve in the weeks ahead and they have more helpers coming after we leave.

Since planting grapevines is out of the question (the roots would rot in soggy soil), we have been put to work building fences. Building a fence on a flat piece of earth takes a little bit of time if you are being precise, but when you are doing it on four levels of terraced hills amongst olive trees that have not been tended to in decades while slogging about in mud and over slippery grass then it takes a lot longer. Before we started I thought that we would have the fence up in two days of working (which is from ~8:30 to ~1:30). Instead, it has taken around a week. Now, don’t get the idea that I am complaining as I have been enjoying the work quite a bit. I am just trying to help you understand the situation. At any rate, the fence is nearly completed and it will be quite pleasant to compare the orderliness of a fenced off and pruned olive grove with the memory of a tangled and overgrown terraced hill. If it stops raining for a moment I will be sure to take pictures.

So the work has been enjoyable. We wake up around 7:30, eat at 8:00, and then start working at 8:30. As I said, we finish working at 1:30 and then have lunch. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day and tends to be pasta. We then have the rest of the afternoon off. Some days we have spent taking walks in this time but many other day’s we have hung around with Ev and Claudia. We have dinner around 7:00/8:00 and then sit around and chat until around 10:00 at which point we head back for bed. Ev and Claudia have also been kind enough to take us on little trips to see the local sights. You can see them in the pictures that I have posted.

In the time that I have been writing this I have had to stop and start again because of having to go eat lunch. Thus, I forgot where I was going with this. I know it was supposed to go in a particular direction but I don’t remember what that direction was. So instead I will talk about something else and that something is my interest in having a small farm of my own one day. I don’t intend to have one for quite some time or to earn a living from it. It is more of a long term goal. The start up costs are pretty incredible. Ev told me that just purchasing the 2,100 grape vine plants cost him 15,000 euros (~19,000 dollars). So my thought is to wait until I have built up some serious savings before I start my own. I have been browsing some of their small farm books have been learning some interesting things. Apparently, you can grow enough food to sustain yourself on 4,000 square feet (of course this depends on what/how much you would like to eat). The whole thing fascinates me.

OK, I can’t remember if I had anything else to say. I have posted some new pictures so you can check those out by going to the pictures page if you are interested.