Wine Lessons Learned

Over the last four weeks, our group has had the pleasure to sample a wide variety of a product for which Italy has become internationally famous, wine. Within the general red and white categories, there is so much more to the complexity of each brand's taste. Everything can affect the aroma and palette of each variety, from the land on which the grapes were grown, to the way in which the grape juice was extracted, to the conditions in which the fruits were fermented.

Some of these reasons for why a wine has a certain taste is shared among local wine makers, the most obvious example being terrain. This causes a whole region to have it's own distinct taste, and thus creates a collective regional reputation.

Even with this reputation, it seems that every single wine producer has their own signature characteristic to their product, however subtle the change is from another, it's there . . . And I don't taste most of those differences at all.

Maybe it's my untrained tongue, it's not like I've been drinking wine for that long. Who could I turn to in this time of ignorance? Surely the wine experts know what they're doing. They have fancy terms to describe their wine tasting experience, like crushed rock, sweaty fruit, and bicycle gears. Well, one of the authors who's article we read definitely disagrees. He explains very professionally that what the critics say is "bullshit," and compares their reviews to a randomized word generating software he invented. I suppose I agree, but only because of some various studies showing conflicting blind taste test reviews.

The Author's Seemed Depiction of a Wine Critic

I don't know what to think about wine, it seems that whatever you think tastes good could taste completely different to someone else. So as for me, when I can buy wine, I'll just support the local economy and find a nice Washington wine to favor.

That's Not for Foot Washing. That's a Bidet.

One of the biggest differences between European bathrooms and American are the strange mini-tub like structures sitting next to the toilets in almost every hotel. We know what these are: bidets; and we know who made them: the French. But why are they in every bathroom if, for the most part, only the French use them? Why are they so prevalent even down in the hotels of Italy? Supply and demand! Isn't economics the best? There's answers for everything.

Turns out, hotel owners all across Europe add bidets to the bathroom FOR the French! According to one of the hotel managers in Italy, they need to put bidets in their bathrooms or the French won't come. Simple economics! There's demand from a key group of people (the French) for an oddly shaped sink for your buttocks. Because of this demand, hotel institutions supply these contraptions hoping that their inclusion of them into their hotel bathrooms will woo the French into visiting their fine, butt-washing place of slumber.

One risk of an institution, such as a hotel, catering so blatantly to one specific group of people is that they may alienate another group. For example, if I was part of the Anti-Bidet Front, would I be willing to spend my time and money at an establishment that puts the happiness of the French over my own? Businesses have to find that optimal point on the continuum of consumer utility where they can make the most profit, thus being profit-maximizers. The goal of an institution in this situation is to cater to the most people possible while offending the least amount of people possible. Therefore, many hotels in Italy have decided that providing bidets in their bathrooms is a good business strategy that will help them to maximize their profits by attracting the French to their establishment.

Yay for bidets.

As a side note, this has been a fantastic month in Italy that I will never forget. Shout out to Professors Travis and Reiman who handled themselves admirably in the taking care of me and keeping me out of trouble. Ciao!

Skiing, Oranges, and the Mafia

Overall this trip, in many ways, has been very unexpected. I imagined the big cities like Rome and Florence to be my favorite places but I was pleasantly surprised by all of the remote cities and villages visited. If I were to travel to Italy again I would probably spend most of my stay outside Sorrento or one of the villas on the Amalfi coast. Cavalese was most definitely one of my favorites. For me, not very many things can beat a sunny day skiing in the Italian Alps.

Arriving in Sicily was beautiful as well; we got to see many of thesmaller towns of the island including Noto, Ragusa, Mudica and Ispica (we’re our villa was located). On our way to our second villa in Sicily we god to stop and look at a citrus orchard. You've never had and orange until you taste a blood orange, it was amazing.

Compared to the rest of Italy I think Sicily has one of the more interesting histories we learned about because it concerns the more recent past. Italia itself is a very young country. It was only formed around the mid 19^th century. And the island of Sicily was among the last to join. In the beginning there was a lot of unrest on the island and the poor police and government presence gave way for the formation of the mafia. The article we read on the economic

history of the mafia in Sicily gave me some interesting information about the mafia and how it was actually formed. In the beginning it was created as a sort of service for landowners to protect against looting and banditry and it eventually evolved to act as a sort of substitute government for the island. Of course we know the mafia is a strong presence in Italy still, so as we toured through the city I thought a lot about how and where exactly this organization is affecting the island and the country today.

Noto gave me a little glimpse, not of the mafia specifically, but of the affect it has on the people and how they deal with its presence. While walking through Noto we wandered into a local shop that sold different types of wine, olive oil, and produce. On the front of the store was a poster advertising their store as a legalized trading company and urging against the support of illegal trade organizations; the mafia. It was crazy to see that the mafia was still such a heavy influence on the market. They are a business that affects every country. Many have different names and motives but they were all formed in similar circumstances and continue to be a growing threat to many societies. In the article it talked about how to combat the problem of organized crime and the conclusion was they only way to fix it was to go straight to the source and fix what made the problem in the first place. Poor institutions give room for crime organizations like the mafia to step in but even if the government makes changes in itself, my question is would it be enough to disband a 200-year-old organization?

Back to Pompeii..

It’s strange to think we have seen almost all of Italy. We have been up and down this country, on the coast and in the mountains and we still have a week to go. Overall it’s been close to perfect in the weather department. We have had beautiful sunny days almost the entire time. We didn’t see a cloudy day until we reached Venice. After catching a plane from Rome to Venice we caught a ferry to our hotel and on a very cold tour of the city. Most of us did a considerable amount of complaining over the next two days but to be fair, it was snowman weather without the snow. But however foggy and windy it was for the deration of our stay in the islands of Venezia it was still an interesting city. Being a big tourist city there was lots of shopping and the place was decorated with amazing Venetian masks in every store window. The culture was different too. We learned, with the help of our wonderful guide Giacamo, that Venetians even speak a different dialect than the rest of Italy.

But I am a little late posting this so I want to go back a week and talk about our stay in Sorrento and our tour at Pompeii. It was great to finally get to visit Pompeii because it was one of the sites that I had a little background knowledge on. What I didn’t expect was the size of the city and the vineyards surrounding it still in production. The place was surprisingly big and big on wine as well. It took us about 2 hours to walk through and we skipped almost half of the town to go and see the theatre and the vineyards. In an article we r

ead about wine and wealth in ancient Italy, we learned thatwine was sort of a risky business and a very high status commodity in ancient times. It was associated with an aristocratic lifestyle and quickly different statuses and types of wine arose from many locations and different growing techniques. It was one of the only sources of alcohol and the seasonal changes posed a big threat to the delicate vines. Pompeii was a big wine producer before the destruction of the city but we learned that they were not big importers of exporters. The wine was a local business.

Today it is still mostly sold locally as well and it is more of a tourist attraction of the vineyards added to the site of the ruins. After the eruption, however, there was a surprise benefit to wine growing. The ash made the soil more fertile and good for growing. Although its not booming business, Pompeii wine is among some of the better quality wines in Italian production.

Ciao Sicily!

A Sicilian cliff filled with 5,000 ancient graves

Blood orange orchards, bike rides to ancient graves, and the backing the bus up onto the freeway... Sicily has been an adventure only Econ 315 can offer. Since arriving we have worked our way across eastern Sicily, walking or driving through the towns dispersed between the hills and orchards.

Sicily has a history that is impossible to compare with any other area of the world. This Mediterranean island has been invaded and inhabited by the Greeks, Romans, Nordics, Byzantines, and Arabs – which has created an environment, history and culture unique from anywhere else on earth. Each culture has influenced Sicilian heritage, to create a truly unique place.

Management of this unique architecture and history offered by Sicily is highly centralized. Nine “Soprantendzas” each have rule over the heritage economy in their province of Sicily. In their highly centralized system, the museum workers and all heritage site workers are all considered bureaucrats. This makes them very difficult to fire (and less knowledgeable) but also makes policy making more effective. Decisions regarding cultural heritage preservation or conservation can be made more efficiently. 

Sicily’s entire culture is very autonomous.  The island’s governments generally had very short life spans, which may explain why their cultural heritage bureaucracy is so strongly centralized. A large portion of Sicily’s economy is tourism, and tourism doesn’t happen without heritage sites that are properly preserved, restored, and accessible.

I think I speak for the most of the group when I say that this Italy trip was the coolest thing we have ever done. We are currently enjoying our couple last days in Europe by walking through Paris! Only in Econ 315!

Econ 315 in Noto

Orangenomics

The legendary "Fanta Tree"

This morning we relocated from Ispica, in southern Sicily, to a small agriturismo (rural tourist house) on the slopes of Mount Etna. There’s no wifi, no hot water (which is ironic, because we’re literally on a volcano, you’d think there would be some geothermic lava-heat or something), and the cold water smells sulfurous, but there is laundry, which totally makes up for all of those flaws. Our travels yesterday took us on a bike ride in a Sicilian nature reserve, where I promptly turned back upon seeing the size of the hill we were about to go down. I’m sure someone else will mention the fantastic experience of coming back up!

The next stop on our northward trek was a small citrus farm down some twisty side roads – we had to abandon Francesco’s bus and ride in the back of some hatchbacks up some dirt “roads” to get to the farm. It was worth it though, because those blood oranges were literally the tastiest piece of fruit I have ever experienced. Everyone else seemed to agree, including the pigs nearby, who ate the defective oranges from the production line. They even knew how to peel them with their noses and get to the fruit inside.

Andre, one of the farm managers and our tour guide, led us on an informative tour around the farm. Their farm is divided into two plots, upper and lower, and grows oranges, mandarins, tangerines, lemons and grapefruit from October-May, along with carob in the summer. Their products are certified organic, and they use a fairly unique marketing structure of only selling directly to the consumer, without any interlocutors taking a cut, because this middleman would make the entire farm operation unprofitable, which shows just how marginally profitable this farm is in the first place. Alessio, our guide, has purchased citrus from this farm for a long time, which is how he knew about this specific farm and got us in.

Hearing about citrus growing was really helpful in illuminating the content of the article that Casey and I have been reading lately, “Parametric Estimation of Technical and Scale Efficiencies in Italian Citrus Farming.” The article discusses the relatively small scale of citrus farms in Sicily as their main weakness. The combination of their small size (averaging less than 5 hectares) and non-specialization of crops (most farms grow many varieties of fruit) contribute to highly inefficient operations. During discussion, the group concluded that the strong history of Sicilian independence – which, curiously, is also a contributing factor to the prevalence of the mafia – also prevents farms from cooperating in ways such as collectively hiring a harvesting crew, purchasing agricultural supplies in bulk, or shipping their products together. To contrast, the total area of the farm that we visited is 27 hectares, which Andre thinks is a fairly appropriate size. Andre also spoke a lot about how they can’t ship to the U.S. because of protective tariffs meant to benefit California and Florida oranges.

Back from the farm, we’ve packed up and are getting ready to head out, to Paris, and then to home…

Organic Farming in Sicily

Our last stop of the trip was Sicily, where we admired baroque architecture, biked through the hills, tried out the local food (like deep fried rice balls filled with meat, cheese, or tomato sauce), and enjoyed t-shirt weather for the first time since we got to Italy. One of the highlights of Sicily was visiting an organic citrus farm. Italy is a huge producer of citrus products, but most citrus farms produces oranges and lemons in ways that can be harmful to the environment and consumers. However, the farm we visited did several things to promote sustainability.

This farm believes in using organic farming methods. This means they grow their fruit without pesticides or chemical fertilizer. The oranges that don't meet their standards for selling are fed to their pigs, as shown in the picture above. The pigs eat the fruit and leave the peels on the ground. When the peels decompose, they become a natural fertilizer for the citrus trees. Additionally, this farm only sells their fruit to buyers within Europe. Shipping produce long distances consumes a lot of fuel and contributes to air pollution, so choosing to ship shorter distances has a smaller impact on the environment.

Most people assume that organic farming is more costly than conventional farming because organic produce costs more in grocery stores. However, the farmer we talked to at the farm told us this isn't necessarily the case. He argues that since his oranges and lemons don't require chemical fertilizer, pesticides, or a wax coating, he doesn't have to pay some of the production costs conventional farmers pay. I think more farmers should consider switching to organic produce to protect health of their consumers, diminish the impact on the environment, and maybe even increase their profits.