Silvio's Wine Tour

Yesterday started pretty early for us as Silvio (from the cooking class) also runs wine tours, and we wanted to have him show us around.  He doesn't advertise his tours right now as his jeep broke down recently.  We offered up our vehicle, and us and another couple from the class made plans to meet up at Silvio's again for the tour.  He warned us not to make plans for dinner as he had never done a tour that was shorter then 12 hours.  Plus all the wineries Silvio was taking us to were all very small family owned and run, and would likely provide meats and cheeses to taste the wines with.  All of which received over 90 points.  Each winery opened new bottles for us of all the wines (most of which we drank).

Our first stop was at the la Fornace winery.  The father walked us through the vineyards, told us about his wine, took us through the cellar, and answered our questions.  He then brought us inside for a tasting of his three wines (Rosso di Montalcino, Brunello di Montalcino and the Reserva) with some meats and cheeses, and bread with his olive oil.  All were great.  We bought a bottle of each wine.  His son Fabio came halfway through the tasting to tell us a little more with a few words of English.  Here they produce about 10 000 bottles every year that are only available at restaurants here in Italy.

Our second stop brought us to Assunto at the top of the hill of Montalcino.  Assunto is the name of the winemaker (meaning to rise).  The wine recently changed it's name from Bellaria as they received a letter from Ernest and Julio Gallo (massive producers) that it was too close to one of their names.  Here we tried the 2004 & 2006 Brunello.  We decided to go home with a vertical (2003-2006) of the Brunello.

Trev with Assunto

We then stopped for lunch at a slow food restaurant, and moved on to our third winery, Fattoi.  Here we tried a Rosso and a Brunello.  Neither of which any of us really enjoyed.  Silvio warned us this would likely be the case before we went, but he wanted us to see the spectrum of different wines from the same grapes, grown in the same area, producing similar amounts each year.  We bought one bottle of the Reserva here just to be able to try that at home.  We figured they deserved a second chance.  Plus we didn't actually get to taste the Reserva at the tasting, so it will be something new.

Our fourth winery was Montecarbello.  Gianni had to come in from the vineyards to talk to us.  He produces about 10 000 bottles/year under someone else's label (such a shame).  In fact this label he sells his wine to was voted the #1 wine in the world 2010!  He keeps a few to bottle and label himself.  This is was we tried.  We had the 2006 Brunello.  It was awesome!  Definitely the best stop so far.  He only had 71 bottles left of the 2006, Kevin and Colleen bought a couple and we bought four.  He opened up one of his last 2 bottles of 2005 for us as well.  I asked Silvio how this is worth it for him.  He opens up 2 bottles of wine, puts out cheese, and takes time away from working for us to buy 6 bottles.  Silvio told me there is no monetary value to him for us going there.  He prefers to do it as he has a lot of pride in what he does.  His comment was "if you travelled around the world to come to Italy, and then took the time to come to my winery I want to show you my wines."  Silvio said it shows him all his hard work pays off when people enjoy his wine.

The property here was beautiful.

Our final stop brought us to Marco.  This was the BEST!  Here we tasted the 2009 Rosso and 2006 Brunello.  Both of these were so great that we, or should I say Kevin and Colleen, bought a bottle of the 2004 Reserva for us to drink there.  Marco's olive oil was also the best.  We bought 4 750ml bottles.  Marco bottled and labeled them for us while we were there.

Oh yes - and Trevor corked the oil for us.  

The scenery here was also stunningly beautiful.

The interesting thing was that both Gianni and Marco did everything themselves.  At the other three wineries there was an entire family, but at these last two one guy did everything.  Absolutely amazing!

A successful trip, and a beautiful drive home.

After a 12.5 hour wine tasting, and a 15 hour day, I was sure we were headed for Hangover City this morning, but somehow we didn't end up make a stop there!

Florence

Two days ago we parked our car in Figline and took the train into Florence.  We go off the train and realized we had no map, and really no idea what we were even supposed to see in Florence.  The day before Trev had booked us tickets for the Galeria Academia to see the statue of David, but that wasn't until 5:15.  What were we going to do until then?  We sort of followed the masses of tourists to see which direction they were headed in off the train.  That took us in the general direction of the golden bridge.  Lunch time was quickly approaching, or come and gone by our usual standards, so we scoped out a place to eat.  We ended up sitting right over the water looking at the bridge.  The restaurant was great and we had an excellent Brunello (1997), and ended up staying there for well over 2 hours.

After lunch we wandered around a little more and gave in to buying a little tourist book with a map.  We found the Academia, and headed in a bit early to try and get our tickets.  They ended up just letting us go in then.  We saw David.  He was probably 15' tall.  In all the pictures I always imagined the statue to be more life size.  After seeing David, that was enough museum for us.  We were on our way (thanks to our  map) to the Piazzale Michelangelo.  A spot that overlooks all of Florence and has a bronze of David.

 I am interested to talk to those that loved Florence to find out what we missed as we both definitely think we missed something here given the reviews before we left.  We had a great day though!

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie....

....That's amore!

When the sun seems to shine like you've had too much wine....

....That's amore!!!!

Cooking 101

This morning we headed into the Morrocco - a small hamlet it Italy not the country - to learn how to cook.  There was a couple from Seattle and another from California.
We made the following:
Crostini with Salsa Verde
Crostini Stracchino and Sausage
Home made Fettuccine and fresh tomato sauce
Plain gnocchi & spinach gnocchi with sage cream sauce
Turkey breast stuffed with grapes and herbs
Frangipane (Apple tart with almond butter)

Silvio, Manuela, and Matilda (the translator) were awesome!!!  I wanted to do a cooking class the rest of the week, but they were already full.

We then drove around Chianti until returning home to make pizzas in out actual pizza oven here on the property.

There is something wrong with the internet tonight, so hopefully I can add pics tomorrow, but we are off to Florence so no promises.

I'm headed for a slice of "left over" pizza ....

Stupid Blogger

It rearranged my posts.  Internet cafe should be before the "Blogger Down" post.  I can't figure out how to get it back in order.

Plus my email account shows a comment from Sak about Trev always burning, and when I look at the blog it's not there.  Sak is soooooo right.  Trev doesn't believe he is just as casper as I am!

Internet Cafe

I thought I was going to have the annoyance of only having the internet on my phone, and having to blog from there, but recent developments have been that I cannot sign onto the blog from my phone.  So...here I am at the internet cafe using a keyboard from 1956.  There will be many mistakes in this blog as it is too much work to goback and delete mistakes.

Yesterday we walked from Monterosso to Vernazza.  It was not want I would call a relaxing stroll, but the views were amazing.

Today we spent most of the day on the beach.  The water was so refreshing (aka ice water) and the sand (aka tiny shards of glass) was hot.  It was a nice relaxing day in comparison to what we have been doing.  Pretty sure Trevor is a tomato as he refuses sunscreen.  I remind 3 times, and then figure he is agrown adult and will do what he pleases.  Apparently he pleases to resemble the lobster he had for lunch yesterday.

Tomorrow we are headed to Modena for a little balsamic vinegar and Ferrari.  Maybe some wifi so I can add pics from Cinque Terre.

The rain in Tuscany falls mainly....

...everywhere.  This morning it poured!  Luckily that didn't ruin any of our day.  We headed to the town, Panzano,  in the area that had their market this morning.  We bought a bunch of fresh veggies, meats and cheeses.  We then headed to a town (mark on the map) that they recommended to us when we checked in (Badia a Coltibouno).  There was a church (?), a restaurant, a winery/tasting room, and that's it.  I guess that is a town as really what more could you ever need?  Lunch was great, and the massive place ended up being completely full with the lunatics that bike Tuscany.  Everyone but us seemed to have a reservation.  Most came in soaking wet.  Lunch was followed by a stop at the tasting room down the hill.  We tasted a few of the producers wines and olive oils.    Neither of us have ever done an olive oil tasting, so that was very interesting.  High quality olive oils have a bitter taste.  When you taste sweet, that is the sign of a very low quality.  The rain had completely stopped and the sun was shining by the time we left the tasting area.  After a day of markets, wine, and touring the area close to the villa we headed home to cook a great dinner.