We sat together on the school bench, in the lowest classes, in primary school, as they say in Switzerland. Her name is Gini and she was top of the class, a seconda, a child of immigrants from Italy. That was exciting for us, because she also spoke Italian and often talked about the country her parents came from. Italy, big, huge for us, a boot, as we learned in geography class, but more familiar for us was: it is the country where the Pope came from.
I often met Gini again later, because she stayed in the place where we went to school. And she still talked about Italy, over and over again, about her second home, about the olives she goes to Italy to harvest, about the landscape, the people, the life....
I took note of all this, picked up the name of the village, even the region I could place; Modena, Bologna. In Bologna I even tried my hand at Italian - for a few weeks.
But now everything, the memory of the past, the knowledge of today, has taken on a completely different meaning, a much more emotional one, Gini has brought a wine with her, from the neighbouring parish of her second (or first) home. An authentic wine, as she says. It is an example of how a wine is not simply wine, but is actually always embedded in a story. Bron and Rusèval are the nicknames of two families who today run a farm (with many vines) and a wine cellar under the name "Celli" in Bertinoro. 30 hectares, this is already a considerable farm. Much of the grapes come from small farms in the surrounding communities.
The wine, which I would probably never have had in my glass without Gini, is dark, almost black, and despite its colour and 14.5% alcohol by volume, very fruity, lively, warm and not at all heavy. Even the fashionable Cabernet (40%) is subordinate to the Sangiovese. Origin-typical, says the German blogger Dirk Würtz, I like that term. Not a wine that is trimmed down for brand identification, but a wine that is rooted in the region and - this does not remain hidden - has considerable qualities. "For indicazione geogografica tipica", as it says on the label. I have the feeling that the wine has a home. It is also the home of Gini, my early childhood schoolmate, without whom this wine would probably never have reached me. And that would be a pity.