There’s nothing like a story to change how something tastes. At the Italian Wine Festival, held under a tent in Amherst’s Mill District on Saturday, April 25, a glass of red wine came with more than hints of blackberries and blueberries; it came with a story from the winemaker.
Co-hosted by the local wine shop Provisions and Mucci Imports, the annual event brought 18 Italian winemakers to Amherst, turning an outdoor tent into a lively tasting space where guests could sip, swirl and learn the history behind each bottle.
The event was everything one might expect from a wine festival: chilled bottles tucked into ice buckets, a constant hum of conversation, live music and the slightly yeasty smell of wine drifting through the breeze.
But what set it apart was the winemakers themselves. All 18 of them traveled directly from Italy, bringing with them not only their wines but also their generations of family history and a deep knowledge of their craft.
“So many of these are just small family wineries,” said Kelsey Mucci, co-owner and co-founder of Mucci Imports. “That’s what I love about it. Give me the whole story; the story makes it fun.”
Mucci and her husband, Nick Mucci, co-founded Mucci Imports after spending several years living in Italy, where they formed close relationships with small-scale winemakers and were introduced to wines they couldn’t find back home.
“If you go and visit wineries and small producers in Italy, they’re so kind,” Nick Mucci said.
“Some of these people, we almost consider them family now,” said Kelsey Mucci.
When the Muccis moved back to Massachusetts, they saw an opportunity to bring Italian wine to the U.S. by importing from the artisanal producers they had come to know personally.
“Now, everybody here gets that same opportunity to really shake hands and learn directly,” Nick Mucci said. “There’s nothing better than having a connection to anything we eat or drink. … That’s what we’re trying to build right here.”
The Italian Wine Festival began in 2016 at Provisions’ Northampton location and has grown steadily in size and popularity. This year’s event in Amherst drew about 200 visitors.
“Doing this out in this part of the state, we don’t normally have wine events like this. We don’t just have Italian winemakers showing up and pouring their wines,” said Benson Hyde, owner of Provisions.
“It’s art. … These are mind-blowing wines, and you almost need to sit down and be with them,” he said.
Wines at the festival represented 17 cities and towns across Italy, from the upper Aosta Valley to Tuscany and down to Sicily, offering a comprehensive taste of the country’s flavors and traditions. Attendees received tasting pamphlets and worked their way through reds and whites, sparkling and still, and wines grown from different soil types, harvest times and production methods.
The Sandrona wine was described as having a “salty, mineral-driven character” from sandy, alluvial soils, while another wine was introduced simply as “Francesco’s grandfather’s blend.” Others underscored rarity and age: a Sardinian wine made from one of the island’s rarest grapes, an alpine red wine made from 100-year-old vines with “wonderful complexity” and a “cult favorite” made with Sangiovese grapes.
For the winemakers — many visiting the United States for the first time — the festival was a chance not only to sell their products, but to share their knowledge and stories.
Mauro Alturi, a winemaker from the farm La Sabbiona, said his family works to preserve the ancient flavors and traditions of the Romagna historical region. One of his red wines, Centesimino, is made from the remaining plantings of a rare grape variety discovered 50 years ago in the courtyard of a family home.
Lorenzo Bagnoli, representing the Tuscan winery La Leccia, emphasized the importance of growing grapes suited to the land.
“We focus only in native grapes of Tuscany, Sangiovese and Trebbiano, because we believe that from our land, our native grapes [produce] better wine,” Bagnoli said.
His family owns 12 vineyards with varying soil compositions, allowing them to cultivate a greater variety of grapes ranging in flavor, color and aroma.
Another winemaker, Alessandro Carrubba, said that winemakers must wait at least three, but typically five, years before harvesting grapes.
“The quality is about the time you spend in the vineyards,” he said, adding that one of the wines he was sampling to visitors, the Frappato, was made from grapes that can only be found in southern Sicily.
At past festivals, Hyde said, guests have been so impressed and inspired by conversations with the winemakers that they later planned visits to Italy to visit them again.
“It’s building that idea of community all the way from across the pond to these folks here,” said Mucci.
Grenville Sequeira, an attendee from Fitchburg, returned to the festival for a second year because he viewed it as a learning opportunity.
“When you go to a store, you’re going to buy a bottle, and if you like it or not, you’ll not know much about it,” he said. “Here, you get a bit of history about it. You can take notes, see which wines you like or don’t like.”
A portion of the proceeds from the event supported the International Language Institute, a Northampton-based nonprofit that provides language education and cultural programming. The institute also contributed Italian interpreters to help facilitate conversations between winemakers and guests.
“They’re doing a lot of really good work in the community,” said Hyde. “It’s one way that we can highlight them and let people know what they’re doing.”
“It’s not only bringing this [Italian] community here,” he added, “but it’s being part of our community here in the Valley.”
