VEROLI MARKET DAY

COLLI WINE FESTIVAL 2018

The Colli Wine Festival did in fact have wine as it's theme, but the wine on offer was more  along the lines of a thread linking a wide variety of stalls and events. For 5 Euros we were given a map and a small cotton pouch on a long strap, which neatly contained a plastic wine glass. This was our entry to the Wine Festival, and at any stall you cared to visit, a jug of wine would be on offer for free refills.

We were told that the food on offer was "street food", created by stall owners, exclusively for street festivals, and not available during the rest of the year in a shop or restaurant. This gave a special frisson to the occasion, a fresh, one-off carpe diem sort of event, virtually an entire "pop up" street village, created for one night only, each year.

Live bands played, lit by bright fete lighting, and the music rebounded off of the villa and church walls.

Slim strings festooned the street above our heads, decorated with cartoons of wine glasses, fairies, wine lovers, and festive images.

Colli is primarily laid out in one long ancient lane, and the festival coiled it's way up one side and down the next; it was impossible to see the end in either direction. Piped in recorded music blared from one end of the street, and then subtly morphed into the street bands, and tapered off into in the darkness down the other side. On an ordinary day the little village is quiet and sedate, punctuated with church bells at regular intervals, laughter and gossip from cheerful neighbours, passing the time of day in front of their houses. But it blossomed into a large exotic flower on this evening, and villagers packed the tiny lane shoulder-to-shoulder, well into the next morning.

The joy of "street food" is it's simplicity, its portability, and it's ability to stabilize you between glasses of wine. On offer were high-carb items such as pizza, fried pizza, and jacket potatoes filled with a variety of toppings such as lamb stew.

Freshly made potato chips were huge, incredibly crispy, and made right in front of you in boiling cauldrons, laid out next to vast piles of potatoes.

Hot braziers flared, and an enormous drum filled with hot coals and roasting chestnuts was manned by a kindly woman, cheeks flushed with the heat.

Deep fried scampi and calamari were cooked to order, freshly dredged in seasoned flour and served in paper cones with a wedge of lemon.

A large display of home made cakes and pies was laid out immediately outside of my front doorstep, and strategically situated near the ticket booth.

There is a particular skill required at street festivals: balancing your glass, your food, and your conversation simultaneously. The clever partiers bought paper cones of street food and tucked them into their cloth pouches, leaving one hand free to hold the glass, and another hand free to gesticulate while chatting. I retired comparatively early, but I stole out onto our balcony to see how things were progressing, 'round about midnight, and I saw nothing but contented faces, happy families, young people laughing and smiling. No one was yelling, no one was throwing bottles, no one was getting sick or antagonizing people, it was just the kindest, friendliest gathering of a community that I had ever seen.

As I understand it, street, wine, and food festivals take place all over Italy, throughout the year, a steady stream of celebrations for the glorious cornucopia that is the Italian countryside. In Colli I saw people of all ages, babes in arms to grandparents, and great grandparents. This is how communities thrive and survive: an unspoken agreement to unite each year with the gifts of food and wine, to celebrate togetherness, and uniqueness, and all things joyfully, and ebulliently, Italian.