EMILIA-ROMAGNA, Italy--Medieval village of Brisighella , a hilltop town in the Appenines, southeast of Bologna, southwest of Ravenna. Charming "Donkey Street" has old stables on ground floor (to house the animals who worked the chalk quarries), newly desirable lodgings in the covered passageway upstairs.
Just outside town, the cooperative sells olive oil (local orchards are famous) and, of course, wine. But it's not a shop for tourist so much as a filling station for the folks who live here and trundle their casks and demijohns through the double doors. Cheapest is trebbiano at one euro per liter (roughly $1.20 a bottle). Chardonnay, sangiovese, etc., also available at slightly higher price. (Hey! This is a good thing, practiced by coops everywhere. Drains off lesser quality juice, saves cost of bottling for folks who drink plenty of wine every day. Too bad nothing like this in US.) The olive oil is 11 euros per liter, which is, surprisingly, more than you'd pay at Trader Giuseppe or Whole Paycheck.
And by the way, petrol goes for almost $9 a gallon here. And people heart Obama.
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