Wine country
Trip Start
Sep 24, 2010
1
9
20
Trip End
Oct 19, 2010
Greve, Tuscany, Italy
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Here it is for our Sunday, Chianti Region visit, WOW!!! visual overload. Today we had another private tour with just Kimberly, myself and Franco our driver which is the owner of the tour company. We have been blessed with the most amazing tour guides so far. We started the day off with a visit to the American WWII cemetery near Sienna, somber and breathtaking place, over 4000 Americans are buried there and it is maintained to perfection. After this we drove to an old monastery that dated back to the 12th or 13th century. Since it was a Sunday and we were there right around the start of there Mass, it was nice to see the church in use, Bella (beautiful). We also realized that just like in America the Italians are also late getting to church on time, there was a lot of people pulling up and dashing into the church.
So after we left the church we went to another hilltop town that was dating to the 8th century. A little hamlet that is the last untouched hamlet in Italy. It is amazing to think the we were walking on the cobble stones of a little village that was built 1300 years ago. This hamlet only had about 50 families living in it. Mostly retired. There was only homes and one restaurant and no stores. The people have to drive down the hill on a road that is paved and sometimes was only just dirt. It seems like a very simple life to live.
In the afternoon we drove over to the highlight of our day...... A Winery :o) we went to a small winery that was family owned. they produce aprox. 70,000 bottles (yes that is real small) our guide Franco knows the family and we received beyond special treatment. You see the winery is not open for tours at all, they just have a wine tasting room and a restaurant for all the people that come, weather it be local Italians or tourists. So we went all throughout the winery, just the three of us, learned all about the Chianti wine, how it is made, saw bottles of wine that were only 3 years younger than Kimberly (lol) we also went into the Balsamic vinegar area, that was cool, they rotate the vinegar from barrel to barrel every few years and each one is a different wood which adds to the development of the flavor. They sell both 22 year old and 30 year old balsamic vinegar... pretty darn cool stuff! So then we went out into the main yard and met the father of the family that owned the winery, Romano, you could tell he was proud of his wine. They happened to be bringing in a tractor load of grapes and we were invited to see how the grapes are processed. Believe it or not they have Lamborghini tractors (the shinny silver one) so we then were able to get a few pictures with the other workers. Next, the Food..... we went into the restaurant which is amazing, so cute and quint that it only sat about 40 people, a very family like setting. There happen to a group of mid to late 20's Italian youths that were out for the day on their motorcycles eating and drinking good wine. Everything was fantastic, the food, the wine and the company. I had Pasta with a wild boar meat sauce and Kimberly had Ravioli. Once again simply amazing food. Of course we had the Chianti wine and just amazing service. Kimberly and I met the Son of Romano, David who is the current name on the wine label. Romano has retired but he still works in the winery. David's mother (mama) is still the head chef in the family restaurant and Kimberly was able to get some photos in the kitchen. After lunch we went into the wine tasting room and had an after dinner liqueur to cleanse the pallet. Franco continued the tour of the winery which we had a wonderful doing.
Unfortunately do to our enjoyment at the winery we had to miss Pisa on the way back, traffic was bad and there was only one road into Pisa from the direction we were coming from it was OK though, since we had such an amazing day.
Comments
What a awesome day day you had. The pictures are wonderful, thanks for sharing.
The village is very beautiful, so neat and clean. You can tell they take great pride in their village. Amazing it has been able to stay untouched all these years.
WOW! The winery you got to see, talk about being in the right place and what a wonderful tour guide.
I'm so happy you both are on this great adventure and thanks for taking us along for the ride. :-)
Unbelievable! What a beautiful trip!