Rolle of Cison di Valmarino
Vineyards, olive trees and silence in the postcard of the gods
Rolle of Cison di Valmarino.
The village sung by writers
and defended by Fai against concrete
ROLLE OF CISON DI VALMARINO (Treviso) – There are places hidden in the light where the vineyard climbs the hills and gets lost beyond the horizon, where the olive trees stand out on the slopes creating an imaginary barrier that divides the earth from the sky and where nature opens up to the human eye in orderly but never monotonous rows. In these places far from the reality of the industrial warehouses that crowd our region, life still flows at the same speed as in the past, governed by the immutable laws of nature that every September requires the intervention of the human hand. “This year, however, the cold and rain have accelerated the ripening process of the grapes – says Renato Bortolotti, embracing his six hectares of vineyards with a gesture – we will start the harvest early in early September”.
Until then, however, in Rolle – the only Italian village named point Fai (Fondo dellAmbiente Italiano), located 40 kilometers from Treviso – nothing will happen. Rolle in fact remained identical to himself for hundreds of years to the point of deserving the nickname of “postcard of the gods”, as the poet Andrea Zanzotto loved to say. “Gninte. Here no gninte ever happens. But it is the most beautiful place there is, “Grandma Ambrosina says smiling sweetly. She has lived right in front of the town church for exactly 82 years and she has seen the town empty over the years from eight hundred inhabitants to just over one hundred and fifty. “We seem to have remained in four villagers and four hoteliers,” continues Ambrosina as she takes a black goto de vin from a barrel that she usually offers to those who visit her house. Just a few couples in search of peace, some German cyclist who stops spellbound for a couple of days while crossing the 47 kilometers of the Prosecco cycle path or some motorcyclist bewitched by the curves that connect Conegliano to Valdobbiadene. “Once there was a school with 65 children – says Vincenzo Gallon, councilor of forty years ago and now an eighty-year-old farmer and proud of his twenty hectares of vineyards – today there is one of girls”.
Who gets on the bus every morning to go to school in Tarzo, 15 kilometers away where the warehouses reappear and the traffic is again that of the Veneto hinterland. The incredible panorama of Rolle, broken only by the iron wire suspended from the ground that is loaded with grapes every spring, however, hides precious secrets. “I come here a couple of times a year to rest at my grandmother’s house with some friends – explains Marco Rebuffi, who has just finished his third year of law – It is a quiet place, we take a few walks and rest”.
Walking through the village overlooking a single hilly road, it is not difficult to talk to people. Partly due to the heat and partly out of habit, the doors of the houses remain open and everyone comes out of the kitchens to happily chat with visitors and cyclists who stop at the only fountain in the village. “Rolle is the penultimate village created by God”, Gallon points out, pointing to the profile of the Sleeping Beauty, the mountain that dominates Rolle and which forms the profile of a lying girl. But why? “Because God made it next to last!” Gallon concludes without adding anything else. On the other hand, beauty has no need for explanations, at most some road signs. In fact, in a few kilometers you can reach San Pietro di Feletto, Refrontolo, Arfanta, Corbanese, Conegliano and Sarano or places of interest such as the mill of Croda, the Abbey of Follina, the castle of Conegliano, the castle of Cison di Valmarino, the Caves. of Caglieron di Vittorio Veneto and the vineyards and cellars of Valdobbiadene. (Keep it going)
