Cortelà and the vineyards of Monte Versa

Against the backdrop of vineyards and olive groves, the bell tower of Cortelà pops up among the houses of the southernmost nucleus of the town of Vo'.

The vines, they explain, are planted 'a ritocchino,' that is, they go up the slope along the lines of maximum slope, and in this case they make the eye converge toward the ridge, where the church of Saints Nazario and Celso is. Picturesque. Otherwise the rows can follow the contour lines, and then the vineyard would be called 'a girapoggio'. There is poetry in agriculture, too.

A tractor goes over and over between the rows to mow the strip of grass that separates them and in the end the result is worthy of a garden. Having reached the ridge, the gaze sweeps all around over the countryside, from the plain to the hills behind. It is easy, then, to grasp the meaning of the name Cortelà, from the late Latin Curtis-lata, large court, in the medieval meaning of the term: an agricultural estate dominated by which was the nucleus inhabited by the landowner and his peasants.

From Cortelà, walking along the small valley of Mount Versa with the trachyte quarries of Zovon and Mount of the Madonna (m 523) in the background.

From the village, the road enters the soft undulations of Mount Versa, which to call it such is far too generous, and then climbs toward Mount Vendevolo, younger brother of Venda. The vineyard is mistress of the landscape, having conquered space on even the most impervious slopes by shaping them into ridges. A verdant sea, punctuated only by olive and cherry trees, historic crops, with rows of cypress trees for scenery at the entrance to the farms.

Ascending from Cortelà, a view of olive groves and vineyards stretching to the unmistakable cone of Mount Lozzo.

On the Euganean Hills they have done things seriously by studying the oenological vocation of each soil: these are places, for example, of great reds, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, reason why today I will have to choose an appropriate dish. Such as the very popular bigoi co l'arna, vermicelli al torchio with duck ragout; once a precept for Our Lady of the Rosary, in early October; today they no longer know season and it is immediately clear why. Or, I read, the dish of the day: roast pheasant with cherries, by golly!