Wine and wildlife! Diaries part 10

The evenings were not generally busy, the tourists preferring to visit the lake during the daylight hours,

“Wait till the Greeks arrive,” warned Chrysoula once more “they stay till late at night. I’m always glad when August is over.” ( This being my first summer working on Crete, little did I know at the time how right she was!)

Often family and friends would gather in the evenings, on one such evening there were about fifteen of us. “I’ve put pork chops on the grill” called George hurrying through, “They’ll be ready in about fifteen minutes.” Just at this moment the phone rang and Poppy ran to answer it.

“It was Dimitri from the top of the road,” she told us “The ‘agronomia’ is coming this way.” There was a mass movement. I sat bewildered not knowing what the problem was. The lights were switched out.

“Come with us.” Ordered Poppy as she led me into the families sleeping quarters.

Everybody crowded in whispering and giggling. The only person who left was George who vanished at regular intervals to check the grill.

“Have they gone yet?” Asked Manolis, peering out through a hole in the curtain.

“I don’t think so.” replied Markos, “They’ll surely smell the chops grilling if they come close.”

We stayed hiding in the room until Michalis was sure the coast was clear.

“What was that all about?” I asked George when I got the chance.

“The Agronomia? They check all the receipts and tills. If they find that we have meat and no receipt they will take us to court.”

“What if it’s meat from your own animals?”

“The same applies .It’s a crazy system. That’s why we didn’t want them to come in and check this evening, even though it was only a party of friends and this is our home they would never have believed that it was a private party.”

The season progressed and the taverna became very busy. June turned into July; the mulberries ripened and fell off the trees leaving dark purple, almost black, splodges where they landed, and young Yiannis climbing up the tree to hand us down the sweet fruits. The nights became hotter and the mosquitoes more voracious. Occasionally I could grab a few minutes for a swim or a walk.

One evening as I was walking with Athena we suddenly saw a strange sight.

“Look at that!” she exclaimed. There, in front of us was a snake, a rat was attached to its tail trying, I suppose, to catch it. Following along was a cat after the rat and watching in bemusement was a puppy! Each day there was a small surprise to break the monotony of our busy lives.

A few days later as I was cleaning the tables outside Michalis asked me to help him to hold the branches of some young mulberry trees that he was grafting together to form an arch. I was perched on a wooden chair when suddenly we heard a loud scream from the kitchen. It was Poppy’s voice. Michalis dropped the reeds he was using to bind the branches and ran in the direction of the scream leaving me holding the two branches in mid air. I waited anxiously wondering what on earth could have happened. I was relieved when Michalis eventually reappeared laughing.

“Poppy took a saucepan out from the bottom cupboard,” he chuckled. “She found a snake in it.”

    Later in the season when wine season was in full swing; having picked the grapes it was time to crush them. The grapes were tipped into an old stone ‘patitiri’, a stone structure looking something like a child’s paddling pool with a drainage hole at one end. Michalis arrived wearing a pair of Chrysoula's shorts which caused much merriment. Rubber boots were worn by some of the treaders whilst bare feet were preferred by others. “Where’s Athena?’ went up the cry. Tradition says that the winemaking will be more successful if one of the treaders is a virgin! I didn’t like to ask what happened if the wine was a failure. Would her virtue come into doubt?

The grape treaders climbed into the ‘patitiri’ and began to stomp on the fruit. As the juice began to run out more grapes were added. Wasps began to arrive attracted by the sweet smell of the must. This was just one of the hazards of the job. For those who were treading with bare feet there was the problem of foreign objects, twigs and grit that had found their way in to the sacks. The juice was drained off into barrels and the grape skins and other residue put into other large containers and left to ferment. This would be distilled in a few weeks to make the tsigouthia. Some of the must was taken by Poppy who made a jelly like sweet, ‘Moustalevria’ by adding flour and walnuts, boiling it up, then sprinkling the result with sesame seeds. Some was eaten fresh and some was placed in the sunshine to dry for the winter.

“Georgos!” we heard footsteps running, “Georgos!”

“That’s father. He sounds upset about something. I’d better go to see what’s happened” George rushed off to find Michalis. It was early the morning after the wine pressing and everyone was still sleepy, sitting around the table drinking morning coffee. The girls looked bewildered.

“Do you know what has happened?” Nobody seemed to know.

After a while George came back in. “All the wine!” he exclaimed, “Last night father went to take a sample of the new wine and left the tap open on the barrel. 600 litres of wine has run down the road!”