My Italian Bulldozer

by Alexander McCall Smith

  After sitting there for ten minutes, Paul resumed his journey. Castello Riccio was only a short way beyond the turn-off to Sant’Angelo in Colle and was marked by a large sign on which an elaborate family crest had been painted. The main feature of this crest was a picture of a castle in a state of disrepair; on one side of this castle was a wild boar, tusks and all, while on the other was a wood. Beneath all these, forming the base of the crest, was a picture of an ancient leather-bound book, open to show illuminated pages.

  His destination could be seen from the turn-off—a large farmhouse with a few outbuildings scattered about it. One of the largest of these had a new roof, the tiles a lighter red than those on the other buildings; this, Paul assumed, was the cantina where the wine was made and stored. A truck parked beside it, laden with crates, confirmed this. Behind the buildings was a small stand of oak trees, and beyond these, climbing up the slope of a gradual hill, were the vines themselves. As always in the Tuscan countryside, there was no sign of activity when the scene was viewed from afar; a stillness, suited to the heat and the unmoving air, reigned over the buildings, the yard, the vines, and Paul knew that it was only when one came close up that activity would be made out.

  He parked the bulldozer under a tree a short distance from the house. There was still no sign of anybody, but when he approached the front door, his footsteps crunching on the gravel of the path, a posse of dogs, small and indignant, rushed out to bark. The dogs kept their distance, but they had served to alert their owner, who now appeared first at a ground-floor window, and then in the front doorway. Tonio, thought Paul. That grand, cumbersome name, and then just this man…

  Paul greeted Tonio and began to introduce himself.

  “I know who you are,” Tonio said. “I had a telephone call. They told me you were coming.”

  Paul saw that Tonio was a man somewhere in his fifties, perhaps slightly older, with a shock of brown hair and thick eyebrows. His eyes were bright, and Paul immediately warmed to his smile. There was about him, though, a rather resigned look, with a suggestion of being weighed down by the ages. Paul remembered the crest with its ancient castle and its old book; family history could sit heavily on the shoulders of one destined to keep a name, and a place, alive.

  Tonio led Paul through the hallway into a large room that seemed to act as living room and office. Against a wall at the far end was a desk on which piles of paper had been neatly stacked; before the desk was a chair of aged dark oak with carved legs; a jacket hung over the back of this chair, giving it the air of having been recently vacated. Two of the walls were lined with book-shelves and the other two were covered with pictures darkened with age—a holy family on the flight into Egypt, a boy with a hunting dog, a woman filling a pitcher from a spring.

  Paul’s host invited him to sit down on a defeated-looking sofa while he drew up a library chair. “I’m relieved that you speak Italian,” he began. “Most of the visitors sent out to us do not, and we have to rely on my less-than-perfect English. I make many mistakes, I fear, sometimes to the great confusion of our visitors. Italian and English have false friends in their vocabulary.”

  “Oh, I’ve done the same thing,” said Paul.

  “I can’t imagine that.”

  Paul looked up at the vaulted ceiling. This was painted, but the pigment had faded and only vague shapes and outlines remained. Tonio noticed his gaze and offered an explanation. “Scenes from the Risorgimento,” he said. “Camillo di Cavour in Piedmont, plotting against the Austrians. Unfortunately, we had a flood in the room above this one some years ago, and the water lifted off much of the plaster, including all of the Austrians. We had to restore it as best we could.”

  “So your family has been here a long time?” said Paul.

  He noticed the question had an effect on his host. It was as if he had been asked a troubling question and had been forced to trawl through memory for the answer. Eventually Tonio replied. “A long time, yes; some centuries, in fact. Before that we were in le Marche—hence the name.”

  Paul frowned. “Forgive me, the reference…”

  Tonio smiled. “Bartolo, you will recall, was a great jurist from those parts. He lived in the trecento—what you call the fourteenth century. I believe we may be descended from his family, although there is still much research to be done.” May be descended…it was all rather vague. Or shall soon be descended; Paul remembered di Lampedusa’s parvenu who, if he did not already have distinguished ancestors, was said to be in the process of getting them…

  Paul mentioned the crest and the open book. This seemed to please Tonio. “So many people don’t look at these things. They forget that the whole history of a family might be displayed right there—in one or two simple devices on a stemma. You saw the book, which is the Digest of Justinian.”

  “I see.”

  Tonio continued his explanation. “Justinian was the Eastern Roman Emperor—over in Constantinople. He built Hagia Sophia—you may have been there—that great church that the Turks stole from us and made into a mosque. And he collected the writings of Roman jurists.”

  He paused, as if to allow Paul time to catch up with the vast sweep of history. “I believe there may be some family connection with Justinian,” he said. “These things are obscure, of course, and I would not lay too much emphasis on it—but I believe it may exist.”

  Paul expressed admiration. “It must be a great responsibility,” he said. “Looking after a place with that amount of history behind it.”

  Tonio accepted the compliment gravely, bowing his head in acknowledgement. Pointing to a line of framed photographs on one of the lower shelves, he explained that they were pictures of more recent generations, of uncles and aunts, of his grandfather. His grandfather, he said, was a particularly talented winemaker but had been denied the success he deserved. “They were envious, of course. Envy is a very big factor in Italy, you know. Everyone is envious of everyone else. It has always been so.”

  Paul sympathised. “In Scotland too. We call it the tall poppy syndrome. If somebody does anything exceptional, then others will want to cut him down to size. Chopping the head off the tall poppy, you see.”

  Tonio laughed. “That is a very good metaphor. I will remember that.” He made to rise to his feet. “Would you like to see the cantina?”

  They left the house and went into the building that Paul had seen when he turned off the road. As they were making their way there, Tonio suddenly stopped. He had not spotted the bulldozer under the tree and now noticed it for the first time.

  “You came on that, Signor Stuart?”

  Paul smiled. “I know it’s very unusual, but I’ve been using it to get around. I rented it.”

  Tonio looked at him in frank astonishment. “You’ve been driving a bulldozer?”

  “It’s not as slow as you’d imagine.”

  Tonio whistled. “Astonishing! I’ve heard that Englishmen are eccentric, but this…”

  “Scotsman.”

  “Forgive me, Scotsmen too. I cannot imagine that anybody else would use a bulldozer in that way. Amazing!”

  They continued on their way to the cantina. In the cool of the building Paul saw the tanks and the casks of wine stacked neatly on large racks, each with its date noted in chalk.

  “Last year was an especially good vintage,” said Tonio. “We shall sample it and you shall see what I mean.”

  He moved towards a large cask lying on a rough wooden trestle. He picked up a pipette and examined it against the light from a window. Then he turned to Paul.

  “Forgive me for asking, Signor Stuart, but are you…” He tapped the pipette gently against the palm of his hand. “Are you familiar with Italian wine?”

  Paul was surprised. He assumed that the Consorzio official had told him that he wrote on the subject. “I do my best,” he said. “It’s a complex subject.”

  Tonio smiled. “Yes, very complex indeed. It’s just that there are many people who think that Italian wine is Chianti, and Soave mayb
e. That flabby stuff. They think that that’s it.” He paused. “You’d be surprised at how many visitors we get who think that Chianti is only one wine or that there is only one Montepulciano. You’d be astonished. Educated people too. What do they teach them in British schools; in American schools?”

  Paul tried not to smile. “I suppose there are other things…”

  Tonio did not let Paul finish. “And you’d think the French would know better,” he continued. “But you’d be wrong if you thought that. They think that there’s only one sort of wine—French wine. They don’t quite believe that anybody else can make wine. Bordeaux, Bordeaux, Bordeaux. Toujours Bordeaux. Heaven knows where people get their ideas from.”

  “Oh well…”

  But Tonio was in full flight. “This Chianti business,” he continued. “People see a label with Chianti printed on it and they think that’s a single wine, but the zone of production is vast. Vast. And there are hundreds of different sorts of Chianti.”

  Paul managed to mention the black cockerel. “I think people recognise the black cockerel symbol. They know about that.”

  Tonio shrugged. “Maybe, some will, but they are few and far between. And then, of course, there’s Lambrusco. The stuff they sell in your supermarkets that calls itself Lambrusco is a disgrace!”

  Paul agreed. “Horrible,” he said.

  “Red lemonade—that’s what it is,” Tonio went on. “So people think that all Lambrusco is like that—sweet and fizzy—mouthwash, really. And yet there is good Lambrusco—wine that they’re proud of up in Modena, Parma, places like that. The problem is that the big wine growers ferment their wine sweet; they add grape must. Real Lambrusco can be nice and dry—with just a hint of strawberries.”

  “I’ve tasted it,” said Paul.

  Tonio looked at him with new respect. “So you know what I’m talking about.”

  Paul nodded.

  “We have remarkable wines in Italy,” said Tonio. “Think of them, those wonderful big red wines from the south—the Sicilian wines that taste of Etna. When I have a glass of one of those in my hand, I close my eyes and I see the volcano smoking.”

  Tonio’s words triggered a memory, and Paul saw it too. The volcano with a puff of white against the deep blue of the Sicilian sky; the rich lava-earth, spewed from the crater, eruptions ago; the green of the vines against the black of the soil. “When I was a boy,” he said, “I had a teacher who made us learn poems off by heart.”

  “I had one too,” said Tonio. “Dante. We learned Dante.”

  “There was a poem by an English writer called Lawrence. D. H. Lawrence. He liked Italy.”

  “Your English writers did. They all loved Italy.”

  “And he wrote a poem about a snake he saw in Sicily. I can still recite it. It may sound strange in Italian—or different, at least—but it was about a snake who came to his water trough in the morning. On a hot, hot day, and I in my pyjamas for the heat…The snake was there before him, you see, and he had to wait. He tells us it was brown, earth-golden, on the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.”

  Tonio was watching him. “It’s good to be able to recite poetry.”

  “With Etna smoking…It’s always stuck in my mind.”

  “Like the taste of a wine you love. Like that?”

  Tonio did not wait for an answer. “Yes,” he continued. “There are so many wonderful wines—some of them not at all well known. Have you ever come across Sardinian Vernaccia? It’s very different from our own San Gimignano Vernaccia. It’s a bit like sherry and you drink it with bottarga. That’s grey mullet roe. Very special. But the list goes on and on, my dear friend. Two thousand sorts of wine, I think. Two thousand!”

  “That’s a very tall tree to be at the top of.”

  Tonio’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, I suppose it is. And we’re up there, right at the top, with…”

  Paul took it as his chance to interrupt. “Barbaresco and Barolo?”

  Tonio weighed this suggestion. “Many would say that, yes. If it’s Brunello you’re referring to.”

  “Yes, that’s what I meant. But why Brunello? Why do you—I mean you personally—think it’s so exceptional?”

  “Taste,” said Tonio. “If you want a simple answer: taste. It tastes good. It was simply a brilliant invention. You know about Ferruccio Biondi Santi?”

  “Of course.”

  Tonio smiled. “They genuflect at his name round here. And I suppose he deserves it. We need our saints, don’t we? All of us, whatever we do, we need to have some saints—people who are the heroes of whatever it is we believe in. Religion. Food. Football. Whatever. There have to be saints.”

  Paul waited for him to continue. He was aware of the fact that he had misjudged Tonio at the beginning. He had come here thinking he would meet a buffoon, and he had met an intelligent and rather appealing man. And yet, although his host had warmed to the discussion of wine, his air of disappointment lingered.

  Tonio turned back to the cask and tapped it gently with his knuckles. “Back then in the nineteenth century, Biondi Santi had the great idea of not mixing the sangiovese with other grapes. He left it in the cask for longer than normal. And that made Brunello.”

  “But there must have been other factors.”

  “Of course there were. The position. The slopes around Montalcino are perfect for grapes. There is all the sun they need, and yet at night it becomes cool because of the height. That’s very good for the acidity. And our soil too, I suppose. Put it all together and you get Brunello. That lovely taste—and the ability to age. That’s balance, of course. The wine must have the balance to age for years and years.” He paused. “Have you tasted any of the great vintages?”

  “They’re a bit expensive for me,” said Paul.

  Tonio shrugged. “The market controls our pleasures, doesn’t it? But some of the more recent ones are not too bad—not by the standards of Bordeaux: 2001 was good; 1995 too; 1961.”

  “I shall just imagine them. There’s pleasure in imagining these things.”

  “Nineteen forty-five,” said Tonio. “That was a great vintage, you know. Just think of how bad things were in Italy then. The poverty. The sheer hardship involved in just existing after the War. And Mother Earth comes up with a great gift—a great harvest. She says to Italy, You’ve not been very good, you know, and maybe you don’t deserve a great vintage—but here it is.”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t judge.”

  “Perhaps not.” Tonio glanced at him. “We have a lot to be ashamed of in that period, you know. We try to make out we were victims, but we weren’t. We let it happen. We created Mussolini. And many, many families had their Fascists. Mine included.”

  Paul remembered what Ella had said about Tonio’s family. He was about to say something about the past, and the point at which we could detach ourselves from it, when Tonio continued: “My great-uncle was an enthusiastic Fascist,” he said. “I am ashamed of that. I am very ashamed.” He hesitated. “But everyone has somebody in their family of whom they are ashamed. There cannot be a family anywhere without a skeleton in the cupboard.”

  Paul thought about this. Tonio was right, he suspected. “We had a fraudster,” he said. “A cousin of my father. He defrauded people, then ran off to Australia. He died in a flood in Queensland. He was swept away.”

  “Well, there you are,” said Tonio. “But I must let you taste my wine—rather than just talking about it.” He smiled, and beckoned to Paul to join him beside the cask. “We could talk for hours, I think, and be very thirsty at the end of our conversation.”

  He eased a bung out of the top of one of the casks and inserted a pipette. The wine drawn off was then released into two glasses. Tonio handed one to Paul.

  “Rosso di Montalcino,” he said. “Here, taste that.”

  Paul raised the glass to the light. “A very good colour,” he said.

  “Of course,” said Tonio.

  Paul sniffed at the glass. “And a fine nose too.”

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p; “Very fine,” said Tonio, sniffing too.

  Paul put the rim of the glass to his lips and took a sip. He rolled the wine round his mouth, drawing air past the liquid. Then he turned to Tonio.

  “This is very good,” he said.

  This brought a beam of pleasure. “Yes, it is, isn’t it? Sangiovese grapes—same as those used to make Brunello. Pure sangiovese—nothing added—unlike some, I have never added anything else. And…” He paused to give greater weight to his words. “You’ll remember how they changed the rules a little while back and allowed Brunello to be sold after twenty-four months in the cask? They allowed Rosso to be sold after twelve months—well, I stick to the twenty-four months. But even with one hundred per cent sangiovese and twenty-four months in the cask, I cannot make Brunello. I have to call my wine Rosso di Montalcino—just because I’m five hundred metres outside the zone of production. Five hundred metres! The man who trims my vines can spit that far!”

  “It must be hard for you,” said Paul. “This certainly tastes like Brunello. I, for one, could be fooled.”

  Tonio sighed. “It would be easy for them to redraw the boundaries of the zone of production, but will they do it? They will not. I have asked them time and time again, but they simply say that the zone of production has been fixed and it is impossible to extend it. I ask you!”

  Paul made a sympathetic gesture. There was always injustice in any border, in anything. You drew a line and there was always somebody just on the other side; on one side of an arbitrary line there could be happiness and prosperity, on the other misery. But he did not say this.

  They continued their tour. Walking up to the vines, Paul looked back over the roof of the house and the cantina towards Sant’Angelo in Colle. The scene was one of perfect agricultural simplicity, unchanged, he imagined, from what would have greeted any walker on that path fifty or one hundred years ago. He glanced at Tonio and asked him about the number of cases he sold each year. Tonio gave him the figures. Above them a swallow shot across the sky, dipping and twisting in pursuit of invisible prey. Tonio looked up.