The fame of the Cinque Terre is due also to its
products, the dry white wine, simply called 'Cinque Terre' and the 'Sciacchetra'',
a prized dessert wine made from prime grapes dried to the point of
holding only a few drops of sweet juice.
A colorful addition to the
Cinque Terre products is 'limoncino'; a dessert wine made from steeping
lemon peels in pure alcohol and then adding sugar and water to make a
fragrant and fresh liquor.
The lemons, another famous product of the
Cinque Terre are prominently on display in the many 'limoneti' (lemon
groves) and at the annual Lemon Festival held each year in Monterosso
during the season of Pentecost.
The Sentieri dell'Uva (Grape Routes) are still as they once were,
with fig trees planted in strategic positions to give shade during breaks
from work, agaves planted to mark boundaries, to line the footpaths along
steep, stony steps and to indicate the rail terminals of the recently
installed monorails which are the only vertical structures emerging from
this seemingly completely, horizontal landscape. Many dry stone walls
support this terraced landscape.
The large wicker baskets of grapes (corbe) are
arranged along the "pose" (little walls, as wide as tables, built solely
for this purpose). These include Albarola (Trebbiana), Biancorotto,
Bruciapagliaio, Piccabon (Pizzamosca). To make white table wines the
following varieties are used: Fiore di Bosco, Rappolungo, Fogiaccia, Ruspara, and
Sesagra. Baskets full of Magnagra (Albarola), from which the famous
Black Sciacchetra' is made, are handled with extreme care and set aside.
The Cinque Terre grape tracks reach down to the sea.
In the past, people used to anchor small fishing boats called "gozzi"
immediately below the terraced vineyards. Baskets laden with grapes were
then lowered from above into these small boats which then sailed round
to the otherwise inaccessible village.
Nowadays this method is nothing but a distant memory,
but by visiting the Cinque Terre you are still able to sample some of
the most prized wines of the world that have been created by centuries
of backbreaking experience.
