The Harvest Road

In the Langhe, the hills of Barolo and Barbaresco are picked in September and October, and Nebbiolo is the last grape in, when the fog has already come — that is where its name comes from. From October to December, Alba holds its white truffle fair, the one truffle that cannot be farmed: it is hunted at night, with a dog, and sold in the morning by the gram. It is the most expensive harvest on the route and the only invisible one.

Traditional balsamic vinegar is not made from wine but from grape must boiled straight after the harvest, in cauldrons, for hours, until it halves. It happens in October, in the lofts under the roofs where the barrels stand in sets of five, six, seven, each of a different wood, and where the oldest vinegar is over twenty-five years old. It is the one harvest on the route you smell before you see.

Marradi is the capital of the Tuscan chestnut, the marrone del Mugello, and every October weekend it holds its sagra: the whole village smells of chestnuts roasting on coals, and the castagneti — chestnut woods planted centuries ago — are gathered with rake and basket. Chestnuts were the bread of the Apennines until a century ago; today they are a festival. It is the cheapest harvest on the route and the most cheerful.

When you arrive, the Chianti harvest has been in for two weeks and the must is fermenting in the vats. That is the right moment: you do not see grapes, you see what comes next. The cellars open for the new wine, the vines turn red, and in November the olive harvest begins, with new oil, green and bitter, pressed the same day. Chianti in October is the most photographed landscape in Italy, and rightly.

Between Spoleto and Assisi the hills are covered in olives, and Trevi is their centre. The olives are picked from November, with nets spread under the trees and rakes, and go to the press the same day — oil that waits a night is not the same oil. In November the hill villages open their presses for Frantoi Aperti: you watch it being made and taste oil that was olives an hour ago.

Norcia is the capital of the black winter truffle, hunted from November to March, and of the Castelluccio lentil, harvested in summer on the plateau above, which flowers in June in every colour. The town is also the capital of charcuterie: norcino in Italian means a pork butcher, after the town's name. The 2016 earthquake brought down the basilica and much of the centre; the town stands and works.

On the Navelli plateau, at 700 metres, the best saffron in Italy is grown, and it is picked in three weeks from late October: the crocus flowers open at night and are gathered at dawn, before the sun touches them, and from each flower three red threads are pulled by hand. A kilo of dried saffron takes around two hundred thousand flowers. It is the shortest harvest on the route and, after truffle, the dearest by the gram.