MORRO D'ALBA: Mio vino e vostro vino (a good reason to drink in the middle of the day)

I'M REMINDED OF a really clean big garage when I enter the main room of the Mancinelli Winery. Rather than cars, large stainless steel barrels that measure about 15-feet line one side of the room.

“It smells like a hangover,” Annie whispers.

A short old man, owner Fabio Mancinelli, greets us warily, not knowing what to make of the four smiling girls with their male chaperone silently standing before him.

George attempts to break the ice with his paltry Italian vocabulary. Somehow he succeeds in getting across the point that we’re “journalism” students.

The man’s offer to allow us to taste the wines on a table next to him seems reluctant, yet once he starts pouring he’s very generous passing out three different glasses refilled twice more with different red wines.

I smile after each taste, hoping that between the five of us we will be able to finish the servings.

We pass the glasses around each trying to pawn off the remaining wine by arguing about our varying tolerance levels and how much we’ve already had. It’s an awkward position, not wanting to be drunk in the middle the day and not wanting to be rude.

Smiles are the only way I can show my reaction to the various wines’ tastes. After tasting the final full-bodied red wine I’m unable to remember if its “molto buono” or “molto bene,” so I resort to a thumbs up.

After our tasting he offers us a tour. He leads us down a winding stairwell to more stainless steel barrels. We all draw our own hypotheses of the various machines purposes based on the different shapes, Italian signs and dials. He explains each of their purposes to George who relays the process of removing the grapes skins to all of us.

We are led into another room that is filled with crates of wine piled from the floor to the ceiling; there must be over a thousand bottles of wine. We look at each other with wide eyes, imagining having such a collection at our own disposal. Stocks of corked barrels fill another room. The crimson dripping stains around huge wax corks look like bullet-hole wounds.

Back upstairs we meet the owner’s wife, Luisa, who is equally knowledgeable about the wine and olive oil making processes. Luisa shows us the olive oil machines, much smaller than those dedicated to transforming the grapes.

She explains the process of making oil in slow Italian to me. I nod my head every few minutes and say, “Si,” feigning comprehension.

For the bottling process she uses her hands to help explain, holding an imaginary bottle, pouring in imaginary wine and topping with an imaginary cork. She is standing in front of a machine that we learn costs about 300,000 dollars.

I look at her Salvatore Ferragamo sunglasses and her husband’s LaCoste T-shirt and wonder if it’s a lucrative business.

Luisa leads us outside into another building where we follow her upstairs to a room that resembles a restaurant. Various half full bottles of wine and grappa are laid out on a front table.

She pours us a glass of wine that resembles port. It’s strong and there is nowhere to spit it out. I am unaware of the customs of wine tasting.

After she pours us each of us a glass of white wine, apologizing that it’s not “freddo,” she briefly leaves the room.

A blackberry tart is in her hands when she returns she is apologetic once again that it is all she has for our spur of the moment tasting.

As we sip our glasses of sweet white wine we follow her out on the balcony surveying the Italian countryside.

“Mia casa” she says proudly pointing to an adjacent balcony covered with potted plants and a brightly colored mosaic door.

I picture what its like to live her life. Perhaps she has an eligible son.

- Philly Petronis