The land of Montepulciano
Gravelling through Abruzzo’s vineyards
I curve quickly around a bend, and our eyes meet. His, cold, black and yellow rimmed, mine blue and set into a white sclera. Time halts. Wheels spin. Hands twitch for brake levers. In that time-stands-still moment we both assess the situation. Who’s to move? He - for it has to be a young male so insouciant is he about the approaching danger - is sunning himself in the middle of the road. Me? I’m not so sure I can move off my line as I am already committed to it. We both have a nano second to react. With a buzzard-like sigh, the avian teenager leaps into the air, unfurls reluctant wings and takes to the air, his flight feathers brushing my hands as he lifts.
I’m riding through Abruzzo’s vineyards on my way to the sea. The road plunges into a deep cleft in the hills, made almost night-black by the roof of trees, before lurching back up the next hill on a trajectory usually taken by a rocket launching into space.
Abruzzi gravel is a mix of hard earth and lumpy stones. The bike skewers and bounces as we head down a hill on the far edges of controlled riding. The head, ever sensible, says hold on here, apply a little brake whilst the heart exalts and instructs hands to ignore the health and safety instructions. Vines fly past, the varied greens of the fields blur into one as I speed.
A few thrilling kilometres later, I re-join the road which levels in an Abruzzi way - meaning that the slope is reduced to a mere 2% incline. As I slow, I have time to admire the vines growing on their pergolas. Thick wires supported on concrete posts head down the field. New leaves sprout from gnarled old wood. Butterflies dance between the trunks of the vines. The land beneath the pergola has not been ploughed, giving it a scruffy and naturalised look. Poppies roam the fields, white bladderwort, trumpet-sized bindweed. Bushes of yellow rape, shoulder high wild oat grass, wild barley. Distant hills rise like ocean waves towards the cloud-wrapped Maiella mountains.
Luxuriating in the semi-wildness of Abruzzo, a province in Central Italy, I’m pleased to be free of the regimented lines of monocultured vines of the north where I rode last week. There’s a freedom to riding in what can be seen as a less-manicured countryside.
I am not paying full attention to the road before me. Nor is the cat, which is lying prostrate right across ‘my’ side of the road, sunning itself in the late-spring sun. Suddenly alarmed, it jerks its head around and with a spectacular flip, somersaults. It twists into a double pike and lands on all four feet on the green-matted verge. I want to stop and applaud such agility. The jury in my head awards the feline’s floor routine as a 10.
The air smells green and rich as I near the coast. I haven’t seen a car in the last 20km, rather I've only heard distant tractors on their caterpillar tracks squealing their way up vertiginous slopes, as they spray the vines to prevent an outbreak of phylloxera. No farmer wants a repeat of 2023, when a similar wet spring wiped out 80% of their grape harvest.
It’s only a few more downhill kilometres down to the ultramarine sea which spreads out below me. A cracked road, gravel on the edges. Nearer the coast, the country is more ordered, the verges mown.
Reptile country. Lizards bask mid-road and scurry to the safety of the grass as I approach. What initially looked like a black stick, begins to sinew languidly off the road into a clump of recently cut wild oat grass: a whip snake, completely harmless but alarming nonetheless.
I arrive beside the sea and ride on a dedicated cycle path, traffic-free. A group of women on hired bikes are all over the path, having a carefree time. Video cameras are out, smiles and laughs and much happy shouting. I ring my bell, which is ignored. I shout a warning that I'll need room to pass. That too is ignored. Somehow, we all manage to avoid each other. Ripples, rather than waves glitter with a zillion lights flickering on and off as the sun catches their brief tessellating plains.
The trattoria in the coastal village where I am heading, will soon be preparing a large bowl of pasta heaped with various crustaceans fresh out of the Adriatic. The waitress will bring me a glass of cool Trebbiano wine. The sea will rustle over the bleached white shingle beyond the window as I eat. And afterwards I’ll snooze on the beach before the long ride back, hoping that the buzzard will be sailing in the sky above me rather than blocking the way back home.
To ride the route, click here
