Friday, July 4th, 2008
Today is all about tasting Brunello de Montalcino. We head out in the morning after breakfast in the hotel—more good coffee and bread, pastries—and banana yogurt! We travel about an hour to Montalcino. It is absolutely beautiful countryside. Tuscany is exactly as it’s pictured in the calendars and postcards. My photos certainly can’t do it justice.
Today is all about tasting Brunello de Montalcino. We head out in the morning after breakfast in the hotel—more good coffee and bread, pastries—and banana yogurt! We travel about an hour to Montalcino. It is absolutely beautiful countryside. Tuscany is exactly as it’s pictured in the calendars and postcards. My photos certainly can’t do it justice.
The first winery on our tour was at Cal d’Orcia. I really loved it. The winemaker and owner both made presentations, and were extremely knowledgeable. Owner Francesco Marona Cinzano presented on “Wine marketing.” We tasted a 2006 Rosso di Montalcino and a 2003 Brunello di Mantalcino, then a 2005 Banditeila, the single vineyard red wine that was the most California style of them all. I appreciated the professionalism of both the owner and the winemaker. The winery and grounds were beautiful and the winery was pretty clean. The owner is 15th generation—and a great salesman.
Next we went to Fattoria dei Barbi and the Wine Museum on their site. It was quite rainy when we got off the bus. So we had to make a run for it. I enjoyed the museum-mostly because I was able to find a map of Montalcino and find out the age of each of the wineries we were visiting and where they were located on the map of the area.
Fattoria dei Barbi was the oldest of the three we were to visit. We had a long tour of the winery “museum” and saw mainly the storage rooms with barrels—our guide shared that the production area was not a part of the tour…too bad…I’m not sure he understood that we were all wine students. While the casks were beautiful, mold was very apparent in the rooms, and it started taking its toll on me after awhile. By the time we got to the tasting area—which had a great set up of breads, bread w/olive oil, meats and cheeses (I’m really loving pecorino and truffle infused cheese) I was pretty well saturated. I did not really enjoy the wines as a result. Afterwards I did try their single vineyard Brunello “Vigna del Fiore” which I thought was fantastic.
Our final winery of the tour was Case Basse di Gianfranco Soldera. Mark and I did some research prior to coming and were pretty excited to meet this man. He is a legend in the industry and sells his wine anywhere from $150/bottle to $350/bottle. Needless to say we were honored to have the opportunity to meet him. Gianfranco is a hoot. He’s a little old Italian man who had us all laughing despite the fact that we had no idea what he was saying. He led us into his new winery which was finished in 2001. Case Basse had existed before as a winery and the vineyards were planted from nothing by him in 1972. Gianfranco shared many of his opinions on winemaking—mostly that it’s an art rather than a science…that you need to do most of the work in the vineyards (90%) and only 10% is the winery. He does all of the punch downs himself, which all of us were impressed by. He said he starts at 6am and works until 1am the next day. No time to waste during harvest!
The building is underground, and the walls are solely 1 meter thick of rocks held in place with a metal mesh. When it rains, "water comes in through the walls and the ceiling". Very interesting concept, although not sure I'd be interested in the water.
After our last winery, we were all pretty pooped, but I enjoyed the scenery once again while we traveled back to Siena. Mark and I relaxed a while once back at the hotel and headed out around 8:30 for dinner. The streets in the market were packed with fans of the winning Contrada—it appeared they were having a celebratory dinner together. I really wanted to watch the sun set in the Piazza where the Palio took place, and had my sites set on a restaurant we’d seen yesterday. When we arrived we were pleasantly surprised to see Professor Nuri, Nicole and Andrew and Jennai. They were just finishing, but ended up hanging out while we ate. Mark took some “postcard-quality” photos. Once we finished—we had a fantastic dinner: papperadelli with wild boar sauce, pizza with spicy sauce, bacon and mascarpone cheese, Crème Brule and chocolate lava cake with cappuccinos—ooh la la, quite yummy.
We all walked to the fountain in the square to make wishes—it’s rumored that a wish will result in a quick return to Italy! We were happy to make a wish. On our way back to the hotel, we had to stop for gelato (of course) and ran into a massive crowd of “porquipinos” leaving the square and most likely headed for the Piazza.
Happy Fourth of July everyone!
After our last winery, we were all pretty pooped, but I enjoyed the scenery once again while we traveled back to Siena. Mark and I relaxed a while once back at the hotel and headed out around 8:30 for dinner. The streets in the market were packed with fans of the winning Contrada—it appeared they were having a celebratory dinner together. I really wanted to watch the sun set in the Piazza where the Palio took place, and had my sites set on a restaurant we’d seen yesterday. When we arrived we were pleasantly surprised to see Professor Nuri, Nicole and Andrew and Jennai. They were just finishing, but ended up hanging out while we ate. Mark took some “postcard-quality” photos. Once we finished—we had a fantastic dinner: papperadelli with wild boar sauce, pizza with spicy sauce, bacon and mascarpone cheese, Crème Brule and chocolate lava cake with cappuccinos—ooh la la, quite yummy.
We all walked to the fountain in the square to make wishes—it’s rumored that a wish will result in a quick return to Italy! We were happy to make a wish. On our way back to the hotel, we had to stop for gelato (of course) and ran into a massive crowd of “porquipinos” leaving the square and most likely headed for the Piazza.
Happy Fourth of July everyone!
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