Throughout Tuscany, September is the month of grape picking, one of the merriest and most joyful harvests in the farming world. Wherever you look, you can see vineyards bursting with lush red and golden grapes and groups of people working their way down the fields as they pick them, filling up their baskets with the ripened harvest. Tractors have today replaced the characteristic oxen-drawn wagons of the past, but even so, it is still an impressive sight to see these huge carts, overflowing with grapes, being trailed along the narrow country roads. The countryside is dry and parched after the summer and the leaves are already beginning to change colour before finally falling when the autumn proper sets in.
If you get a chance to visit a farm during this period, you will thoroughly enjoy the merry atmosphere, for although grape picking is tiring, it is most enjoyable, and, as most farms offer meals to the pickers, also convivial. The grapes are then pressed (and not by stamping on them in vats as in the past, now only shown in films), and the wine-making process is started. The new wine or Vino Novello, which is not suitable for preserving but only for drinking at once, is usually ready in early November and has a unique taste that obviously varies according to the type of grape, where it is grown, etc.
Celebrations and festive events are held in many country areas and give visitors the chance to enjoy themselves as wells as taste the local wines. The most famous, and oldest, of such events, is the Grape Harvest Festival at Impruneta.
The town is a hive of activity for the entire month of September while the four wards, each with their own outdoor working area, build the allegorical floats.
Anyone can join in the work, which is carried out, often with great passion, mainly in the evening, accompanied by jolly dinners prepared by the women of the ward. Everything must be ready for the last Sunday of the month (this year September 28th), when the floats parade around Piazza Buondelmonti.
Each ward prepares at least three floats, accompanied by spectacular ballets and performances, with hundreds of participants. The enthusiasm of the public in the crowded square, deeply involved in the contest between the four wards, and the general excitement, makes the Festival a unique event that should not be missed.


Where to go...
• Greve in Chianti - Fair of Chianti wines - (September 12th-14th)
• Impruneta - The Grape Festival (September 28th)


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