32 formerly French families
This weekend, we’ll make our annual weekend visit to the Trentadue Winery in Geyserille, California (for pleasure, not work. Phew). Look out for lots of delicious reports about the fruits of the weekend.
That's me in front of the winery in 2004, way too early in the morning
I’ve always loved a particular story that Victor Trentadue told me in 2005. The Trentadues, he said one day as he handed me a massive pair of bolt-cutters (a whole ‘nuther story), are French. French? What’s with the Italian name, I asked? Turns out that Victor’s family, who were Huguenot Protestants, fled France along with 31 other families in the 16th Century. They ended up in Bari, way down in what is now southern Italy–there was no Italy in the 1500s.
None of the locals in Bari could pronounce these pesky French names. So they called them the 32, as in 32 families. Trentadue, in Italian. Eventually these formerly French families just adopted the name.
So, like Chateau St. Jean (yet another story), don’t pronounce this winery’s name with a faux-French accent.
See you all next week!
