TEN years ago and more, on what seemed a mild enough February day towards the end of our first winter in Rome, we set out for our first trip north. We were headed for Trieste, there to visit friends.
On arrival at Termini station, we were delighted to discover that our overnight train was also destined for Vienna and Moscow. It all seemed very exotic, as if we were heading off to an entirely different country. In retrospect, we were. In some senses, Trieste and the surrounding Friuli region is a different country, part of modern Italy but with a history more linked to Mittel Europa than to the Mediterranean.
On getting out of the train in Trieste, the difference became obvious. Trieste is the Mittel Europa city par excellence, the one time major port of the AustroHungarian empire which suffered cardiac arrest around 1913 and has remained stuck at that moment.
To a mind which had just gone through a first winter of day to day unarmed combat in the madding confusion of ill serviced Rome, Trieste seemed a city of elegance and grace, and of a human dimension.
Other more prosaic differences soon made themselves manifest. It was freezing. Light snow was falling from a sullen grey sky. There was nothing for I but to repair to a local hostelry. Here, too, further differences became obvious, this time of a gastronomic variety in the shape of delicious cold ham and eminently drinkable Friuli white wine.
Indeed, the morning festivities went on so well that it was an especially jolly party which then set out to travel across town to our friends' abode. So jolly in fact that we forgot about the effect of freezing winds, snow and Friuli white wine and promptly drove into the back of an awesome looking jeep.
Fortunately, although both our own vehicle and amour proper suffered dents, the jeep was unscratched and unmoved. We went on our way, perhaps wiser, certainly rather more carefully.
Later that same first weekend, we travelled up to the Carso, the range of hills overlooking Trieste. The wind was up gathered now, howling fiercely and reducing the temperature to an effective 20 degrees Celsius below freezing.
I believe we have never experienced such cold in our lives. This was our introduction to the bora, Trieste's highly inhospitable wind, which in itself is the explanation for the turn of the century double windows (an early type of double glazing) you stills find in buildings all over the city.
By this stage, we had got the message. Italy is a big country, at least climatically, stretching from the North African heat of Sicily to the freezing cold of the Alps. The north eastern corner of Italy, the Friuli region in which Trieste lies is as far removed from your cliched, olive groves dust melting heat view of Italy as could be.
It was all a pleasant surprise. Mind you, not quite all. One had come to realise that the area did produce some excellent wines, red and white, with the latter considered among the finest in the world.
For your further painstaking research on this subject, we draw your attention to any of the following Friuli wines Picolit Pinot Bianco, Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Ribolla, Tocai, Verduzzo Friuliano (sweet), Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon, Refosco etc etc. (Your correspondent's research has been more sustained than systematic).
By the way, long before us the ancient Romans understood the value of Friuli. According to Titus Livius, the Roman Senate in the year 181BC voted to send a troop force to Aquileia to safeguard the surrounding vineyards. Good thinking, lads.
Recently, I discovered another side to Friuli when I visited the steel works of the Danieli group, just outside the region's capital, Udine. Not only did the company bear witness to the region's solid established industrial infrastructure Danieli has been in the business since 1914 but it also turned out to be one of three major suppliers in its field (steel mills) with an estimated value of $267 million by the early 1990s.
That today's Friulani should prove good traders is hardly surprising. They have been trading there since the time of the Karn Celts, around 400BC. Ah yes, there is a Celtic connection.
The Karns, from whom the Carso range takes its name, were I allegedly not a warlike set of Celts (do we believe that?) but rather farmers who were finally driven out by the Romans. Since then, of course, the Lombards, the Venetians, the Habsburgs, Napoleon and even Tito have all passed this way, and usually with distinctly warlike intentions.
The good news of this letter, however, is that readers can get a taste of Friuli themselves next week thanks to a cultural commercial promotion in Dublin, involving the Italian Cultural Institute, the Italian Trade Centre and the chambers of commerce of Friuli Venezia Giulia. Lectures, dinners, exhibitions and, above all, a wine tasting session are on the Dublin programme. Raise a glass of Friuli wine to absent friends.