Female Supremacy Articles - Page 8

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I DON'T ever let up!" she said with a throaty chuckle and a mischievous wink at her daughters, who were huddled with her where almost all Italian families huddle: the dining-room table.

"The lady is a grump," Cristina added, "but she's bravissima."

"When she married my father," Antonella chimed in, referring to the early 1960's, "his mother said, `That woman will be your ruin.' Instead she was his fortune."

Benito Nonino's relatives were then distilling a liquor of an entirely different kind. Grappa was the Italian equivalent of Kentucky moonshine: a cheap source of warmth, a lightning path to drunkenness.

"It was a raw drink, associated with men and hard work," Giannola said. She wanted more for it and for her family, suspecting that both could do better.

Her scheme started with the winemaking detritus from which grappa had long been made. That gritty refuse mingled different varieties of grapes and usually sat around for days on end.

Giannola went to winemakers' wives, who depended on their husbands' for spending money, and offered them extra cash if they would keep the leftovers of one kind of grape separate from others. She also insisted that they hand it over while it was still fresh.