Excerpt from Michael T Sanchelli Memoir

It was about at this period (around 1927) of my life that I would witness an old Italian way of making wine.  I walked in the front door of my house one evening and there were two Italians kneeling by my father who was seated on a chair, they were trimming his toe nails and washing his fee, then they picked him up and carried him across the big bridge and to the Barilla’s front yard.  They stood him up in a great big wooden half barrel, then the fun started.   Two men would dump crates of dark blue grapes in the barrel, my father was mashing the grapes with his bare feet and singing at the top of his voice, songs of Italy.  I had witnessed a scene hardly ever done in this country even at that time.  I had seen my father mash grapes and sing before, but he always had rubber boots on.