FROM “COMMERCIAL WEEK”
“The harvest festival is the happiest in the Marsala countryside. From 8 September, the city empties, business comes to a halt… every self-respecting inhabitant of Marsala goes off to the countryside and livens up the thousands of country farmhouses… Numerous teams of labourers from Municipalities within the Province stand in the public square… and offer their labour to pick the grapes, as there are not enough local farmers to fulfil the need. They start picking the grapes towards mid-September, followed once again in mid October. First, they harvest the early ripening grapes… however, in the vineyards where they sell the fruit on the vine to the factories that produce Marsala wine, the harvest comes much later, as the buyers reserve the right to partly remove the leaves from the vines, in order to allow the grapes to dry a little to obtain a drop in weight and must very rich in glucose. There are two harvests. First, they pick the healthiest, most beautiful bunches and then they go back again… the bunches are cut from the stock, placed in reed and wicker baskets… known as “Cartedde”. When a cartedda is full, it is carried on the man’s shoulders and emptied into an oval vat on a cart. … The bunches… purchased by the factories are carried on carts in vats with a cover secured by a padlock.”
F. VALLESE
The present and the future of Marsala’s viticulture] – 1900
John Woodhouse “modestly travelled around on a tranquil, little donkey through the districts of Marsala and the nearby Communes to personally select the wines that best suited his burgeoning enterprise. Guided more by instinct than by technique which, given the times, was inspired by empirical criteria.
However, at the time, Nature was the great mistress and artifice that slowly but surely gave its results.”
S. CETTOLINI
Various writings on oenology – Editor Battiato – Catania 1925