Naaah. They stole all that art from...
...Bob Ross-i.
Posted on 04/22/2006 7:56:23 PM PDT by Pharmboy
ROBBIO, Italy (Reuters) - Wine conjures up the image of cultured drinkers sipping their way delicately through a full-bodied vintage.
But for two history buffs with a passion for the tipple, northern Italy has the barbarians to thank for its long wine-making tradition.
Luca Sormani, from Como, and Fulvio Pescarolo, from the tiny town of Robbio near Milan, have traced the region's wine culture all the way back to its Celtic roots and have started making it according to ancient methods.
Celtic tribes from farther north -- known to the Romans as "Barbari" -- conquered northern parts of Italy about 2,500 years ago, settled there and started draining marshes, cultivating land and growing vines.
"There is a bit of the barbarian in us," said Pescarolo, 51, who is the ninth generation of farmers from the rice-growing western part of Lombardy. "We feel we are part of this nature."
Interest in all things Celtic -- from music to mystical rites -- took off in northern Italy in the mid 1990s, fanned by the Northern League party which rose to prominence with demands for independence for the north.
Sormani and Pescarolo said their interest in Celtic culture had nothing to with politics and that, instead of the symbols and rites, they studied what was close to their hearts -- a blend of agriculture and wine-growing.
NO HELMETS WITH HORNS
"It's not that we want to put on helmets with horns. It's not about mythology or cults," said Sormani, 40, who has a doctorate in agriculture.
"We feel we are part of a tradition which dates back to the times of Celts."
Standing in a vineyard on a man-made hill in the middle of table-flat rice fields in western Lombardy, Sormani recalled how he spent years studying the history of the
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Ping! Please pass the Guinness Pinot Noir...
They were on the losing side.
Obviously, they, themselves, started out as a wandering band of Celts, Troy, or Illium (or in other Celtic languages Allium) being a Celtic site.
So, early Celts in Italy planted grapes.
No Italian who knows his classical history would have a problem with that.
Couldn't those darn Italians invent anything?
< |:)~
LOL! Well, they were good at art - architectural, painting, sculpture, and music.
Hey I believe it!
A person from Ireland told me just a few weeks ago, get that book "How the Irish (or Celts) saved western civilisation" by Cahill, I am kinding of paraphrasing the title, but surely someone here knows of the book I speak of. It is a treatise on how the books printed, etc. by Irish Monks, withstood the Viking invaders; stuff like that.
Celts are from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Brittany in France and I believe it is said even Bohemia in the Czech Republic-Slovakia area.
Naaah. They stole all that art from...
...Bob Ross-i.
Yup And, tomatoes from the new world for spaghetti sauce.
Pesto Sauce is a great start.
Celts? Aren't those the guys who's idea of battle was to strip down naked, paint themselves blue, and then proceed to kill everyone to their front? I guess that was after they had a good sampling of the grape.
..they even lived in Galatia (Asia Minor \Turkey)
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LOL! "It's your world"
Yes--you make good points, come to think of it. Perhaps the knowledge gained from the Greeks, et al did not travel that far north...but I doubt that. Or, perhaps there was some new technique that the Celts added...
wine ping
I bought that book a few Christmasses ago for dear friends who are Americans of Irish ancestry. They loved it...
"How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe (Hinges of History, Vol 1) Thomas Cahill"
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