INSIGHTS N.

3:

The palmento, the ancient cellar in Etna area

An external view of a palmento. The two big windows under the roof were the entrance gates for harvested grapes.

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The word palmento seems to be the short version of the Latin word pavimentum: pavimentum - pavmento - paumento - palmento, with the au turning in al The word comes from the verb pavio = battere (to beat) and indicates the floor where the gridstone turns. Thus, the palmento is the building where there are a grindstone and other tools. By extension, this term was used later to indicate the place where grapes are pressed. Palmento is ancient winemaking technology: you can find it in most parts of Sicily and southern Italy, but its on Etna wine region where you find the highest concentration of these establishments. Few of them where used until few years ago: nowadays, several winemakers restored them to show and educate visitors and wine tourists to ancient wine tecniques.

The lower part of palmento hosts the big barrels.

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U conzu, the huge winepress system and main attraction in palmento.

Generally speaking, the palmento is a brick (or concrete) bathtub, rectangular and shallow, and it is used both for crushing the grapes and the fermentation. It is a single space, structured on two or three levels: on the back wall there are one or more windows, hence the grapes were unloaded directly into the first levels. In this first level the grapes are crushed barefoot. The juice is channeled out and falls in the level below, where it begins to ferment.

In the palmento there is also the winepress (u conzu, in local language), which is composed of a screw obtained from the entire trunk of an oak. This screw allows the pressing of marc, thanks to a large block of stone (petra di conzu) and via a mechanism of weights. A complicated system with ropes also allows pressing the marc.

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The whole work was very hard and heavy for the men, and for the best results every aspect of the work was organized with a clear hierarchy: each man in the palmento had an assignment, according to his age and experience.

Some pictures here portraits hard work in palmento.

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