A Day of Tastings

Tuesday was our wine-tasting day. A private wine-tasting I might add, including a private tour of a castle and the winery, Castello di Nipozzano, set up by our friend Adriano in Milan. We were so excited. We even left extra early  to ensure we'd have enough time to find the place, even though the GPS had been working flawlessly. And then with 5 minutes to go the GPS led us to a road that our little Peugeot compact would most certainly not have made it up, and just like that the day turned into something more along the lines of National Lampoon's "European Vacation".

So the trip started out beautifully...these are what the roads literally look like as you tour through the
countryside. There are main thoroughfares but to really discover places and sights you have to get
off of them and usually you end up winding your way all the way up to the top.

This is the road that the GPS led us to, but this was not the winery we were supposed to be going to and the
map did still show another 5 minutes worth of driving so we followed the "roads" all the way to a road
that Rich refused to go up, determining the GPS was wrong....so we backed all the way down until we
could turn around and head back down to the main road....

And then, as we slowly crept down this totally normal gravel road back
down to the main road (as cautiously as one could since Rich has zero experience driving on gravel...
...and you know, since they can be so treacherous) we just slip right off the edge.
I'm not sure what you call it when your car's wheels are slightly elevated because there's something in the middle
holding them up, but that's what happened; completely stuck, halfway in a ditch, in the middle of a vineyard.

Rich claims he was avoiding the rocks on the left side of the road...
my response: "um, it's a gravel road, there are rocks everywhere."
So as I went into hysterical laughter, Rich went down the road for help.
Also, it's about 11:15 now and we were supposed to be at Castello di Nipozzano
for the tasting...still no castle in sight.

The walk down the road proved very fruitful though...the city boy found a tractor...

Our Italian tower spoke no English and had a little difficulty finding the hook under the car
since the ground had been run so far up under the car.

Moral of the story, always run off the road near a farm where there will always be the
appropriate equipment and friendly people to bail you out....but the story doesn't end here....

This is where Rich wandered to and found the tractor,  a winery named Selvapiana...
he also determined this was the winery we were supposed to be at so we went in...

But there was no one to be found....AND this couldn't have been the place because
it certainly was no castello...and it certainly didn't look as though
they gave public (or private) wine-tastings...

But still convinced this  was the place, found someone in an office and she proceeded to give us a wine-tasting...
but only after she opened the first bottle, Rich asks if she knows Adriano. Of course she doesn't but we
determine maybe he knows the owner of the land or something like that. That's when Rich pulls out
his phone to check the email again with the name of the place we were supposed to be at and as suspected
THIS WAS NOT THE PLACE!

We didn't want to be rude on two accounts, so we called the real place we were
supposed to be at telling them we were running a little late,  and we stayed and finished
our unplanned private tasting at this place. We tasted two Chianti's and their
olive oil which was to die for.

Since they had no idea who were were, but still gave us a tasting
AND they pulled us out of the ditch with their tractor,  the least we could do was
buy a bottle of wine and some oil.
They were sold out of the olive oil and considering how dark and unkept this room was,
I don't think this place sees a lot of visitors.

Our National Lampoon's-kind-of-morning does not end here though. In fact, I think we actually started to channel the Griswald's as the GPS refused to find an alternate route to the castle. It finally found one, but as we would start out going that way it would re-route and turn us around, taking us back the other way. It was like we were stuck on one giant round-about and it proved impossible to just guess how to get there by randomly choosing a different road. We've determined that doesn't work here in Italy. The only way to get somewhere is to really know where you're going. So this fiasco goes on for about half an hour and by now it was 12:15. We were supposed to have been there at 11:00. Even with stopping for the first tasting, we could have made it there by 12:00, if only the GPS knew where it was going...don't forget, the GPS showed it only being 5 minutes from the first winery. Rich was about to give up and go home, as they told us we would only have until 1:00, when somehow we found a road and the GPS didn't re-route itself. We climbed and climbed, up the narrowest roads that made Rich very nervous....even though they were completely paved with no gravel. And there it was, a real castle on the top of a hill, with acres and acres of vineyards surrounding it. Now this was the kind of place Adriano would have set us up with.

There in the distance is Castello di Nipozzano.

Located in the Chianti Rufina zone about 25 kilometers east of Florence, it is owned by Frescobaldi family

who has been growing grapes in Tuscany for thirty generations.

The estate, comprised of 593 acres, is planted with Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc

and Petit Verdot grapes. They say that it is the nutrient poor, largely calcareous soils and it's dry,

well-ventilated climate that make the conditions ideal for producing "noble" red wines.

This was where the tasting room, store, and cellars were located....

...this was the path up to the castle...

...and this is the view...

The manicured parts of the landscape are solid vineyards...

The light green/grey trees are olive trees.

We were an hour and forty minutes late for our tasting, but they had everything ready for us.

We only had 20 minutes with our host Stephania, but we learned a great and got to taste three different wines accompanied by some fabulous Peccorino cheese and the estate's own olive oil.

After our tasting we were free to wander around on our own around the castle grounds and into the cellars
that were open. This was part of the large house and had some wonderful relics of past production.

Wonder if this tractor could have helped pull us out of the ditch?

The first cellar...
the smell of fermenting grapes was heavenly.

The second cellar which seemed to be deeper underground and smelled of earth and fermentation.

Taking our self-guided tour of the castle.

Queen of the castle...for 5 minutes.

The castle bell tower.

We explored what seemed like an abandoned village that surrounded the castle but it might have been
the homes of the people who used to work at the castle when it was an actual residence.
It was peaceful but a little creepy.

No inhabitants except beautiful roses of all colors.

On the road again....headed down from Castello di Nipozzano.

On the way home we decided to stop at one more castle and winery, of someone a little more well-known.

Castello di Verrazzano
The winery dates back to the 1100's and the most famous member of the family, Giovanni Verrazzano
discovered the Hudson Bay in New York and most of the East Coast.
He is also  the namesake for the Verrazzano Bridge in NYC that connects Staten Island and Brooklyn.

Once again, we took ourselves on a self-guided tour of the castles grounds as we weren't really interested in
a tasting or paying for a real tour.

A nice, quaint place but with one of the best views of the whole region.

The tasting room however was not so quaint.
The marketing of Castello di Verrazzano does a great job as groups by the bus loads visit here.

And the bus loads were certainly lined up at the wine shop to take a home a bottle.
I guess when you're a famous explorer and a bridge is named after you, it helps with sales.

This giant Verrazzano cork was down at their visitor's center on the main road, before you head up the road
to the castle....again, fabulous marketing. This is also an example of the rooster that must be present
on a read label around the top of the neck of any bottle of Chianti to indicate that it is official.

This is the little town of Greve, not too far from our villa, and what the Verrazzano castle overlooks.
It's square is splendid for walking, shopping or stopping for a bite to eat...

There's Verrazzano again!