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Italian Travels 2

Day 2

The view from the awesome hillside town of ?

  Breakfast is a warm roll with the usual bland hotel cheese, a small coffee, and a drink bragging of some fruity origin but failing to deliver. There is a lot on offer though, and the chef obviously wants me to sample his torte, his croissants and the array of produce laid tantalisingly before me. My rejection means that once again I've failed some invisible test that might hopefully tell those around me that I'm a 'traveller' and not a tourist! In truth I couldn't look like more of a tourist if I walked up and down the street, carrying a sign that informed everybody that I was a tourist!

'I couldn't look more like a tourist...'

  I beat a hasty retreat and soon gun the car through a life that is happening all around me. I smile a smile that lasts until I park in San Bernadetto del Tronto where I stop, nurse a beer and memories of the time Charlie and I came to stay. Then I smile some more.

  Nineteen Eighty-Five seems a lifetime ago, but I clearly remember my friend's family assembled on mass to eat a variety of produce while speaking and gesturing at a pace that can only be described as manic!

  I remember an uncle the size of an American fridge taking us to see Ascolo football team play before driving us to his farm where we picked

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From one hillside city to another. The view of Chieti

olives and performed a few menial tasks in return. It was bliss, and this collection of fractured memories have drawn me back as I'd promised myself it would when I was planning this trip.

  The shame was that I couldn't remember where we actually stayed or what we got up to in detail. Facts are missing and I wasn't getting them back without a guide like Charlie, and I haven't seen him for decades, so I thought it better to press on to my first wine destination.

  The pace is picked up, and as I drive into the faceless suburbs of a Chieti that lie below the old town on top of a mountain I feel a little nervous for what I've let myself into. 

  Chieti new town doesn't grab one on a first meeting, and I wonder if making this the pivotal point of my adventure in the south was the correct move. Then I reason I'd better just get on with it and enjoy myself because openness is when real adventure starts. If I'm closed, I'll most likely miss those little opportunities that lead to somewhere interesting.

  After a shower, and change of clothing, I wait for Stefano to drop by and take me to the offices of Atomos, where his wife, and business partner, Maria will be waiting.

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The Atomos Wine & Olive Oil Museum in Bucchainico

  The interview will be covered elsewhere, but suffice to say, Atomos make some of the best, most interesting wines I've tried. It's expensive, but when I learn the minutia of production I'm staggered that they don't charge more.

  Stefano was an engineer by trade, and he's taken that engineering perspective and freshly applied it to the process of making good wine. Did I say good? They make that great wine!

  He shows me around his spartan, but interestingly designed offices where mementoes and talking points have been placed carefully around in a slapdash manner, and then Stefano shows me his 'barrel room' where barrels have been replaced by the distinctive litre bottles of Atomos fame. These lie ready to be delivered to lucky recipients. Once again I'm very impressed.

'Did I say good? They make great wine!'

  After a chat we head up to the neighbouring village of Bucchianico, which lies at the top of another mountain across from Chieti. Stefano tells me that the two places used to be enemies, but I imagine the fear is generated nowadays by tourists with a fear of heights!  

  Here you will find the Atomos Museum that serves as a link between the Abruzzo of the past and future. At the moment, apart from the honest and simple tasting room, and a couple of exhibits, it's more to do with the olive oil factory it once was before Stefano's father saw potential and decided to breathe new life into it.

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Can one have too many views to die for?

  History oozes from the earthy walls, and at every turn you can connect, literally, with the past. This includes paraphernalia used for crushing the olives, and storage caves that if they could talk would probably discuss city state battles of pre-Italy and gentlemen from England coming through on their grand tours, although Abruzzo was probably forgotten by those tourists as they skipped from Georgian tourist trap to Georgian tourist trap collecting souvenirs like dainty old ladies fighting at a jumble sale!

  Abruzzo still has that feeling of a place that is stumbled across rather than sought out. This is such a great shame because it offers so much of an honest Italy that I'd found receding in places like Rimini. The food we eat is honest and makes you feel excited to be making contact with the Italy one dreams of before ever setting foot there. 

  We drive back down the extremely steep hill, and after dropping off Stefano's charming daughter and his talented marketing man (a real find for Stefano) we head to dinner where Stefano retrieves a huge casket type box from the back of his car. He tells me it's usually used in transporting organs (and I don't mean of the keyboard variety) but that it plays nursemaid to his wines just as well.

  The meal is the usual twenty-nine courses of tasty, interesting and delightful food. Every course is an adventure in the art of making something simple into something of note, and no request seems to phase a kitchen who produce the goods time and time again.

 We try his Trebbiano, and then his Rosé. I know that I've mentioned the price, but these wines more than earn their stripes, and as we continue to talk, I'm amazed at what this man is doing with wine.

 This is a day to remember.

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A summer Abruzzo sunset

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The Atomos Wine and Olive Oil Museum in ?

For More Information

if you're looking for further information

Comune di Chieti

(for information about Chieti)

https://www.comune.chieti.it/index?action=index

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Comune di Bucchianico

(for information about Bucchianico)

https://www.comune.bucchianico.ch.it/

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