Over the weekend, the Italian government announced that it will slowly begin lifting restrictions on movement across the country. Family members who don’t reside together will now be allowed to visit one another (as long as they wear masks). But restaurants and cafés won’t be resume operation until early June. Today’s “letter from Italy” comes from Enrica Cavallo in Lecce, Puglia. She and her husband Enzo are both lawyers who also run a wine consulting business.

Hello Jeremy,

I’m a reader of you blog and a wine lover, too. I’m sure you already know that — since you are “at home” in Italy — April marks the beginning of the beautiful season: especially in the south of Italy, the weather gets better, the days get longer, the temperatures change from sparkling to mild and people go out…

Actually no, people here in Italy, like in the rest of the world, are not free to go out and move about because of the coronavirus.

Because of the virus, we are living a strange reality. All is suspended. We’ve put our lives on hold. Time is marked by everyone’s fears. We are submerged in a sea of uncertainties. The silence of the streets is compensated by the mountains of news (especially negative). And even those of us who are strong and can swim often are tired and rely on the current.

We don’t want to drown and so we cling like castaways to what brings a little light into the day.

A blooming flower because despite it all, you can’t stop spring from coming.
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Alicia Lini and her family have been making Lambrusco in Canolo (Reggio Emilia province) for more than 100 years. She’s one of my best friends in the wine business and one of the people I admire most.

April 5, 2020
Palm Sunday
Canolo (Reggio Emilia)

Dear Jeremy,

Here I am writing you a letter.

Nothing is obvious anymore. Nothing is the same, nothing we think of is like it was before. These days, everyone has something to say. But not me.
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Above: Piero Mastroberardino grows grapes and makes wine in Irpinia.

Atripalada
April 2, 2020

Hardly a month ago, not even the most imaginative writer in the world could have come up with a screenplay like this: Most of the world comes to a stop, at the same time more or less, waiting for events to unfold.

We’re now living at a distance, thanks to technology. And when we encounter another person, during the few moments of the day when we are allowed to leave our homes, it’s a race to avoid contact.
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Giancarlo Gariglio is the editor-in-chief of the Slow Wine Guide to the Wines of Italy, Slovenia, California, and Oregon. He lives in the town of Bra, where the Slow Food movement was founded in the late 1980s.

I was in America on February 21 when everything changed in Italy. That was when we became the first in Europe and the first outside of China to discover that the novel coronavirus was something more than the flu. It was something we had a read about in the papers, with a death rate of 1 percent. We tended to minimize the threat and even joke about it. Then everything changed in Italy. And it was immediately clear that despite our excellent public health system, it wasn’t going to be easy to face this disease.
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According to a report published just minutes ago by the Associated Press, “Italy, a country of 60 million, registered 2,978 deaths Wednesday after another 475 people died. Given that Italy has been averaging more than 350 deaths a day since March 15, it’s likely to overtake China’s 3,249 dead — in a country of 1.4 billion — when Thursday’s figures are released at day’s end.”

Above: Paolo Cantele, one of my best friends in the world and my client of many years, standing in front of his family’s winery in Guagnano in Lecce province. He calls me “Jar,” my nickname since I was a teenager.

Dear Jar,

It took me a little time to write you because, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t in the right mood for it.

Writing is supposed to be therapeutic. It’s meant to help you overcome you’re the fears and doubts that grip your brain even as your mind, despite its efforts to remain cool and collected, continues to focus on that damned list of infected and dead.
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Angela Mion is a wine writer and sommelier who lives in Este in the Euganean Hills outside of Padua. She posts regularly for the popular Italian wine blog Intravino.

Above: in the place of weekly hours, a handwritten note in a restaurant in Este reads “everything will be okay” (photo by Angela Mion).

Close but faraway.

Italy doesn’t know what day it is today as it looks out onto the world from its windowsill, whether from home or the hospital.

We have never felt so equal. We are all being chased by the same invisible enemy that’s upending all of our lives.

An economy, probably in need of a rewrite, now seems a post-war economy.
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Sommelier and wine writer Andrea Gori is the current generation of a Florence restaurant legacy: Trattoria da Burde, one of the Renaissance city’s most beloved dining spots. “We’re hanging in there,” he wrote me when I asked him to write a post for the blog. “Italians are fantastic team players.” Earlier this week, in its ongoing effort to curb the spread of Covid-19, the Italian government ordered all restaurants, bars, and cafés to shutter.

Above: There are no lines this week at the famous Uffizi museum in Florence (photo by Elena Farinelli). All public gatherings have been banned in Italy until April 3.

Does 16 days seem like a long time to you? Or a short time? Just 16 days ago, we were counting our covers, ordering wine and meat, we were planning wine dinners. Covid-19 was already here and things had already slowed down as if a spell had been cast over the outskirts of the city where our restaurant is located. Things were slowing down for us but in downtown Florence, the tourist apocalypse had already taken shape three weeks ago. The initial reaction was one of pride enabled by the inability to accept that the entire world had turned its back on us — all at once.
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Yesterday, in its ongoing efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Italian government issued a decree closing all businesses except supermarkets, pharmacies, and health care. The entire country has been under lockdown, with a near total ban on movement, since Tuesday. I’ve asked a number of my friends and colleagues there to share their experiences, feelings, hopes, and fears. Today, I’ve translated a letter from my best friend Giovanni Arcari, a winemaker in Brescia province.

Dear Jeremy,

Here in Brescia, the situation is intense. The hospitals are about to fall apart and the number of infections continues to rise. This is all attributable only to ourselves. We believe we know everything and we have become egotistical beyond measure, so much so that we are convinced that no one can be as intelligent as us. Today, we are facing the unknown and it’s beginning to permeate our consciousness aggressively. It’s something that only unexpected death can manage to create.
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A guest post today from one of my best friends in the Italian wine business, Raffaella Guidi Federzoni, who’s hunkered down with her family in Montalcino.

Above: unaware of the health crisis that surrounds them and threatens their stewards, the vines in Italy continue to grow (photo by Raffaella Guidi Federzoni).

Americans love Italians? Yes, they do. They love us very much, even too much sometimes, because we are funny, we know how to cook and how to live. They love us and forgive us for our shortcomings.
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