“They came , they saw , but they very nearly didn’t conquer”

"Squashing down the grapes to make more room"

“They came , they saw , but they very nearly didn’t conquer”.”Never in a field of grapes have so many been picked by so few”.
Is it just me or do these comments , continuaslly made by Nick over the last few days sound familiar. In any case they are certainly true. 40 quintali (4 tons) of grapes, picked from the vine , put into buckets , dragged up a muddy field , to be dumped into a massive container .

Unfortunately , a lot of people who had hoped to come couldn’t make it .This left us with more grapes than even the regulars had seen before and less people to do the harvesting.

Mamma mia ! No easy job , but our team of pickers threw them selves into this Herculean task with out complaint.

As the morning slowely passed , our goal seemed to be un obtainable. Luckily , just before lunch a group of friends and family from Rome arrived to help with the final effort to finish.  As Nick said “better late than never”.