Sixty summers of tavola
Three generations of Bellandi, one oven, eight hectares of vines and a lot of long lunches. Here is the album.
Postcards from the collina
Behind the farmhouse, from bricks off an old barn. The first pizza was for the harvest crew.
Enzo plants Sangiovese and a row of Canaiolo on the south slope. Still producing.
Chestnut poles and wisteria at first, then vines. Neighbours start bringing their own chairs.
Our first bottled wine. Two hundred bottles, mostly drunk at Rosa’s seventieth.
Back from Naples with a new respect for dough and an old respect for his grandmother.
The rosato arrives, and so does the Riserva di Enzo, named over his objections.
Same oven, older vines, longer tables. Come and sit for a while.
Eight hectares, all a mano (by hand)
Sangiovese on the south slope, Trebbiano and Malvasia nearer the house, and a row of old Canaiolo that Enzo planted in 1971 and won't let anyone touch. No herbicides, cover crops between the rows, and the sheep from next door come to graze in winter.
Piano, piano (slowly, slowly)
Time before technique
Two days for the dough, a year in the barrel, a whole afternoon at the table. We don’t rush any of it.
Close to home
Most of what we cook comes from within twenty kilometres. The rest comes from people we have known for decades.
Nothing wasted
Yesterday’s bread becomes bruschetta, vine prunings feed the oven, and the grape skins go back into the soil.