May is the month when the vineyard awakens. We watch with excitement a new vegetative cycle begin, working among the vines and reflecting on some untranslatable words from our Piedmontese dialect.
May in the vineyard is a gentle month: the days grow longer, the light becomes softer yet more defined, the rows fill with green, and everything seems to invite a slower, more mindful pace. It is the month when the vine enters its peak growth phase: flowering approaches, shoots lengthen rapidly, and the winegrower must keep up with tasks such as shoot thinning, mowing, and replacing older vines, all essential for a high-quality harvest.
In this setting, among vineyard work, conversations, and shared moments, some Piedmontese dialect expressions come back to mind. Döit, ghëddu, numaciun and much more: evocative expressions capable of revealing a great deal about this land and the people who have lived here for centuries.
The month of vegetative growth: May between light, vineyard, and untranslatable words
May has traditionally been considered the gentle month: the awakening of spring, the first blooms, mild temperatures, and fragrances spreading through the air have, over time, led to this month being associated with symbolism, celebrations, and festivities, eventually consecrating it to the Virgin Mary.
A month of renewal, carrying the scent of morning dew on the grass, the distant sound of tractors, the first warmth on the skin, bringing life and an invisible hum among the vines. Immersed in the contemplation of our vineyards, we recall some Piedmontese dialect words that are difficult to translate with a single Italian equivalent: döit and ghëddu, terms that go beyond describing behavior, instead expressing a way of being, a natural disposition of the heart.
Döit and ghëddu: kindness in Piedmontese
One of the most beautiful words to rediscover in May is döit: a term with a light, almost playful sound, referring to a person who approaches others with warmth and kindness, someone able to make others feel at ease effortlessly.
To have döit means possessing a natural grace, a delicacy expressed through gestures, in one’s manner, in the tone of voice when welcoming someone to the farmhouse or guiding a guest through the vineyard rows. Alongside döit we find ghëddu, another word indicating drive, initiative, liveliness, or a particular inclination toward something, often translated as “having a spark,” “having flair,” or “a fine way of doing things”: from vineyard work, to hosting friends in the cellar, to sharing a dialect anecdote over a glass of wine.
These are precious words, born of a rural world where hardship, practicality, and often a certain roughness prevailed. Precisely for this reason, those who possessed döit or ghëddu were worthy of respect and admiration: remembered, mentioned in stories, and held up as examples of a “beautiful way of being in the world.”
The numaciun: nicknames, flaws, and rural irony
If the Piedmontese dialect has refined words to describe kindness, it is even richer when it comes to telling stories about flaws, quirks, and less admirable attitudes. These are the so-called numaciun, colorful nicknames and expressions that, with a touch of sharp irony, forever capture a person’s character trait or a well-known episode in the history of a village or community.
Among them are figures such as the desbela (one who undoes everything), the fagnan (someone who is always reluctant to work), the patelavache (literally “cow beater,” used to describe a rude, aggressive person lacking arguments), and the plandrun (a loafer, a lazy person).
These are lively, often biting expressions that tell of a direct, unfiltered world, capable of being harsh yet surprisingly creative in finding the right word at the right time. And so, even today, among the rows of Agricola Marrone, certain numaciun become an internal code, a way to tease one another, lighten the mood, laugh, and joke together about one’s own flaws.
However, as rural life changes, the Piedmontese dialect is also fading, and these nicknames risk slowly disappearing, taking with them entire worlds of stories and faces. After all, our beloved Piedmontese dialect has been passed down for centuries almost exclusively through oral tradition, from generation to generation, sitting at the kitchen table or working side by side in the vineyard. Generation after generation, this linguistic heritage is thinning out, and many expressions disappear along with the people who used them daily.
Telling the story of May in the vineyard through dialect words also means this: keeping alive a memory made of sounds, accents, and images, ensuring that terms like döit, ghëddu, and many numaciun do not remain only on the pages of a book, but continue to live in conversations, from one row of vines to the next.
May in the vineyard: growth, shoot thinning, and work among the rows
While words flow lightly, May in the vineyard allows no pause: the days grow longer, the light becomes intense and constant, and the plants, driven by an unstoppable internal force, stretch toward the sky in search of the energy needed for photosynthesis. This year, a winter generous with rain and snowfall at the right moments has made the soil particularly favorable: water and nutrients have given great vigor to the vines, which are growing strong and balanced.
In a short time, we have moved from the bending phase to that of shoot thinning, one of the key operations in May, consisting of removing unnecessary or excess shoots to concentrate the plant’s energy on the best canes.
In the vineyard work calendar for May, there is also room for:
- mowing, to manage the grass that grows vigorously between the rows thanks to the rain
- the under-vine disc pass, which helps control spontaneous vegetation beneath the vines without damaging the roots
- the replacement of older or damaged vines, substituted with young, promising plants that represent the future of the vineyard.
During this period, the vine also enters the flowering phase, one of the most delicate moments of the year: each flower is a potential grape berry, and the care given during these days (from canopy management to plant protection) is crucial for the quality of the harvest.
Perhaps it is precisely in this subtle balance between human intervention and natural rhythm that we once again find the true gentleness of May: a respectful and harmonious way of accompanying life along its path, without forcing it, yet never ceasing to care for it.
And it is here that dialect words make themselves heard again: in the smiles of those who have döit, in the colorful remarks of the numaciun, in the stories that still today, from one row of vines to another, pass from mouth to mouth like a fine wine we hope will never run out.