110 | October• 2018OF MOONS, STARS AND VINESMargherita, wrapping her baby in a
blanket.Asecondlateritisbiblical.
Riversofrainwatergushdownthe
street.Weruninsideforcover–all
butmychildrenwhorunintothe
piazza.AsIwatchthemjumpingin
puddles, I ask Margherita if it is dif-
ficult to be a woman in her industry.
“People didn’t think we could do it,”
she says. “And we didn’t know much.
We planted half a hectare of caber-
net sauvignon. That didn’t work. And
if we knew what we were doing, we
wouldn’t have broken so much ma-
chinery. But we believed we were do-
ing the right thing.”
These young farmers are living a
kind of bohemian utopia: make beau-
tiful wine using only the tools Mother
Earth provides. Let the moon and the
stars be your guide. Think small and
waste nothing. Listen to music and
read Goethe.
“The biggest misconception is that
this is witchcraft. It is not witchcraft,”
says da Prato, smiling for a moment.
“Well, maybe a little.”There are ten of us for lunch: my
husband, his parents, our children,
the sisters Padovani, Margherita’s
husband and their infant daughter. We
eat on the terrace of a trattoria serving
classic Tuscan food.
“Here wine is food: It’s our cul-
ture, our history,” says Francesca.
“The wine has always been made by
the farmers, not people who think of
themselves as winemakers.”
The waiter serves platters of warm,
crispfiori di zucca(courgette flowers)
and Caprese salad while Francesca fills
our glasses with Fonterenza Rosso di
Montalcino.
“The big vineyards make wine that
always tastes the same,” she says.
“That’snotwine.Wineisaboutfind-
ingthebeautyofthevintage,finding
itspersonality:2014wasacold,diffi-
cult vintage; 2015 was the opposite –
fullandripeandfeminine.Itshould
alwaystellastory.”
Gradually the sky clouds over and
thelandscapegrowsdarker.“Grab
your things – it’s goingtopour,”says
FROMNEW YORK TIMES, (OCTOBER 30, 2016), NYTIMES.COM
ANIMAL IMPOSTERSAn Egyptian zoo made an ass of itself by trying
to disguise two donkeys as zebras, painting
them with black and white stripes – which
inevitably, smudged. The donkeys aren’t the only
animal imposters to fool unsuspecting humans.
Earlier this year, a Chinese family discovered
their pet dog was, in fact, a black bear.NEWSWEEK