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!

A Lesson in Chianti and Dinner With a View - Tuscany - Day 8

We didn't really do anything on Tuesday, as it rained all day, so I promise beautiful photos of Tuscany's rolling hills and vineyards are coming! In the meantime, here's an idea of where we're currently located within Tuscany and some information and history on the Chianti region.

The borders of the Chianti region are not clearly defined but in general it extends over the provinces of Florence and Siena, covering all of the area between the two cities. The Chianti wine area extends further beyond the two cities, all around Florence and even toward Arezzo, Pistoia and Montepulciano. You'll often find references to the "Florentine Chianti" and the "Sienese Chianti" to define the areas closest to one or the other city.

Chianti is a red Italian wine produced in Tuscany. It was historically associated with a squat bottle enclosed in a straw basket, called a fiasco ("flask") however, the fiasco is only used by a few makers of the wine now; most Chianti is now bottled in more standard shaped wine bottles. Baron Bettino Ricasoli (later Prime Minister in the Kingdom of Italy) created the Chianti recipe of 70% Sangiovese, 15% Canaiolo and 15% Malvasia bianca in the middle of the nineteenth century. The first definition of a wine-area called Chianti was made in 1716.

Following World War II, the general trend in the world wine market for cheap, easy-drinking wine saw a brief boom for the region. With over-cropping and an emphasis on quantity over quality, the reputation of Chianti among consumers eventually plummeted. During the 1970s producers started to reduce the quantity of white grapes in Chianti. In 1995 it became legal to produce a Chianti with 100% Sangiovese. For a wine to retain the name of Chianti, it must be produced with at least 80% Sangiovese grapes. A Chianti may have a picture of a black rooster (known in Italian as a gallo nero) on the neck of the bottle, which indicates that the producer of the wine is a member of the Gallo Nero Consortium, an association of producers of the Classico sub-area sharing marketing costs. Since 2005 the black rooster has been the emblem of the Chianti Classico producers association. Aged Chianti (38 months instead of 4-7), may be labelled as Riserva.

By the late twentieth century, Chianti was often associated with basic Chianti sold in a squat bottle enclosed in a straw basket, called a fiasco. However, during the same period, a group of ambitious producers began working outside the boundaries of regulations to make what they believed would be a higher quality style of Chianti. These wines eventually became known as the "Super Tuscans".

Many of the producers behind the Super Tuscan movement were originally Chianti producers who were rebelling against what they felt were antiquated regulations. Some of these producers wanted to make Chiantis that were 100% varietal Sangiovese. Others wanted the flexibility to experiment with blending French grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot or to not be required to blend in any white grape varieties. The late twentieth century saw a flurry of creativity and innovation in the Chianti zones as producers experimented with new grape varieties and introduced modern wine-making techniques such as the use of new oak barrels. The prices and wine ratings of some Super Tuscans would regularly eclipse those of sanctioned Chiantis. The success of the Super Tuscans encouraged government officials to reconsider the regulations in order to bring some of these wines back into the fold labelled as Chianti.

So there you have it, a little history on Chianti  wine and once you try a really good Chianti or Super Tuscan, you'll have a new appreciation beyond the bottles in straw flasks. The region itself is nothing but beautiful rolling green hills, covered with vineyards and ancient medieval towns tucked within them. We plan on getting in the car every day and just driving to see what we find. I don't think we can go wrong with anyplace we find.

Tuesday evening at our friend's parents villa, over the hill, half an our from ours.
The clearing rain made added to the unbelievable view.

We heard it is unusually cooler and rainier than it should be this time of year, but it's still beautiful.
The trees are olive trees.

Scott and Rich

The steaks were unbelievable, from some famous butcher in the neighboring town
that someone had seen on the Food Network.
They were the size of roasts, not an ounce of fat on them, but too big to be filets, so no one's quite
sure of the cut. You're only supposed to cook them like 5 minutes per side, and 15 minutes on end
but we cut them in half and cooked them for a tad longer...medium rare to medium...you cook them
with nothing on them, just a tad bit of salt and pepper, but they came with this powdery salt
that you sprinkle on after cooking....one of the best steaks I've ever had.
We think this is what a "Florentine Steak" is but we need to do some more research.
It was a great dinner and a really nice evening! Thank you to Haley's family!

It's a Small World After All - Pisa and Lucca - Day 7

We're using are country-side rental as a jumping off point to all there is to see and do in the Tuscany region...which is a lot, so we decided on our first full day to head north to get another tourist attraction out of the way -- the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The forecast was also for a 100% chance of rain.

Pisa is located about 90 kilometers north of the Chianti border where we are but there is also another town on the way there called Lucca that is referred to as "Tuscany's Best Kept Secret" or the "Jewel of Tuscany" making the lengthy drive well worth it. After a pit stop back at the car rental to exchange the car we had rented the day before (which is a whole other story) we were off.

Sure enough, the tower is leaning, like really leaning, and after taking the classic photos of attempting to hold up the tower, something almost more exciting than the tower itself happened; we ran into friends from NYC, Scott and Haley Starkin and Haley's entire family....right there next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Rich used to work with Scott a long time ago and they have remained friends. They got married last year in a beautiful wedding at The Boathouse in Central Park and that was the last time we saw them before moving to Korea. They had just arrived the day before, all here for Haley's parents' 40th wedding anniversary and had rented a villa about half an hour south of us. They invited us over for steaks the following night and we parted ways, both on our way to Lucca. What a serendipitous moment! 

The tower is simply the campanile or bell tower of the Cathedral of Pisa. 

It is situated behind the Cathedral and is the third oldest structure in Pisa's Cathedral Square
 after the Cathedral and the Baptistry.

. The tower has 296 or 294 steps;
the seventh floor has two fewer steps on the north-facing staircase.
Prior to restoration work performed between 1990 and 2001,
the tower leaned at an angle of 5.5 degrees, but the tower now leans at about 3.99 degrees.

Construction of the tower occurred in three stages across 177 years.
The tower began to sink after construction had progressed to the second floor in 1178.
This was due to a mere three-metre foundation, set in weak, unstable subsoil. Construction was subsequently halted for almost a century, because the Republic of Pisa was almost continually engaged in battles with Genoa, Lucca and Florence. This allowed time for the underlying soil to settle. Otherwise, the tower would almost certainly have toppled.
In 1272 construction resumed and in an effort to compensate for the tilt, the engineers built upper floors with one side taller than the other. Because of this, the tower is actually curved.

And this is Scott Starkin, completely surprised, after finding out the man behind him demanding that he give him all his money was only Rich. 

Rich and I with The Starkin's.

We then stopped by Lucca, despite the heavy rain.
Lucca is known for wonderful restaurants, antiques and it's incredible music festivals.

Lucca's most stunning feature though are the ancient brick wall that was built around the entire city in the 16th
century for defense. The entire wall is still in tact making Lucca the only town
in all of Italy that's completely walled in.

More roses. I literally can't get enough...or enough pictures.

Even in the rain, Lucca was a wonderful place to wander through.

Beautiful antique shops are everywhere along with tented markets in the squares with less expensive finds.

Love the green door and the Italian flag above it.

On top of the wall that encircles the town.
On a sunny day this would be the ideal place to bike.

Doing the dishes after a spaghetti dinner.