Chianti Wine Tour - August 20, 2010

 Thursday August 19, 2010

Not much of note today. Wandered the streets, ate gelato, drank wine, had dinner in the square. Just a lovely Italian vacation day 😀

Steve can't resist a treat like this!

Dinner at a restaurant in Piazza del Campo

Friday August 20, 2010

Senne's Summary: Went on a guided tour of three wineries in the Chianti Region. Had lunch at an "authentic" Italian restaurant.

Our tour guide Franco Fadda picked us up at 8:20. It seems a bit early, but we had to pick up the other two people on our tour from Florence.

After we picked them up, we headed out to the Chianti region. Franco warned us the roads would be curvy, so I was a bit worried about car-sickness, but luckily--no problems!

The first place we stopped was Villa Cafaggio. We went on a tour of the winery and received an explanation about how they grow the grapes, harvest them, make the wine and bottle it. (The views from this place were exceptional, and I was ready to move in!)

View from Villa Caffagio!

Next we went into the tasting room where they had four glasses of red set up and a little plate with things to taste. Franco gave us some explanations on how to taste the wine and then we had at it. It was interesting because out of the four people on the tour we all preferred a different wine. Steve of course preferred the most expensive one 😀

Wine tasting!

While we were tasting the wine, we tried the little tidbits of food. They were all yummy, but I saved my wine filled chocolate for last. HOLY DELICIOUS. I have never tasted anything like it in my life! Steve and I bought a little package of them and are attempting to save them for when Mom and Gary join us in Rome next week. (Now that I’ve written it, I have to save them, right?)

Here are a couple more photos from the winery...

After we left this winery we headed off to Castello d’Albola. This is another big winery where we went straight to the tasting room. We tried quite a few reds, a white, a dessert wine (yuck!) and then something called Grappa (SUPER DUPER INFINITY YUCK!). I actually did the cough/choke thing when I tasted the Grappa!

Franco in the tasting room

Steve and I agreed on our favourite wine this time (35 Euros a bottle at the winery, so who knows how expensive in the store!), but didn’t buy any because we’re leaving for Sorrento in the morning and already we’ve had too much wine today!

Yes please!

Next stop… lunch… at what Franco calls an “Authentic Italian” restaurant. It was just off a little road in the countryside. It did seem like you were visiting someone’s house. There were lots of family sized tables and we were clearly the only tourists in the place. The food was amazing. We had a little wine (like we needed more!), an appetizer and then this incredible grilled meat. They don’t season it with sauce… just with salt and pepper. Steve and I both went for the spare ribs and sausage (on Franco’s recommendation) and were not disappointed! They give you a little lemon to squeeze on top and then you eat. I have not tasted meat that yummy in a very VERY long time! For dessert (also Franco’s recommendation) we get these little white spherical pastry things, filled with chocolatey goodness and covered with white chocolate goodness. I can’t remember what he called them, but they were delicious. I’ve never had anything quite like them. Of course to finish off the meal, Franco convinces us we need to try some Limoncello. I take a sip (icky!) and Steve very chivalrously finishes his and mine so I don’t have to. (I don’t think he liked it so much either!)

We get back in the car and head out to our third and final winery, which is a very small winery. The previous two we visited typically bottle hundreds of thousands of bottles a year (The first, Villa Cafaggio, bottles 900,000 per year). This one only bottles 12,000 per year.

The guy who runs the winery was very laid-back and interesting. He answered all kinds of questions about the wine making process. He was actually quite funny (he reminded us both of Uncle Joe 😀). The guy, was impressed with Steve’s questions… he thought Steve was a chemist or something because of his excellent questions about the wine-making process. (It appears Steve was listening whenever Stu was talking about wine!) We got to try another taste of his wine from the bottle (it was quite good), and also had a little taste right out of one of the big oak barrels!

Unfortunately while we were at the last winery the mosquitos found me! Franco asked me if I had any repellente, and I explained to him my troubles trying to find it in France or Italy. Would you believe he drove us to a grocery store (where even he couldn’t find it) and then drove us to a pharmacy, came in with us and made sure we found some repellente. This, I thought, was particularly kind and above and beyond what tour guides are expected to do!

As well as bug spray the lady in the pharmacy sold us some kind of cream to help with the itch. I swear this is a MIRACLE cream! I don’t know what’s in it (can’t read Italian!) but don’t really care. Within an hour my bites were so small I couldn’t see them anymore and stopped itching. So far this trip my bites have been BIG and itchy for almost a week. I LOVE everybody involved in getting this miracle product into my hands!

This concludes the tour and we drop the other couple off in Florence and then Franco returns us to Siena. It is 7 in the evening now and we are both exhausted! We had originally planned to do some laundry and pack the bags for the morning trip… but we both just crashed on the bed, watched a little TV and then fell asleep!