Wine Tour

Today we hired a guide and toured around the Chianti region. That was fun. We visited 3 kinds of wineries, small, medium and large.

Our first stop was very small. We learned a bit about Chianti Classico (the Classico is just a name for the wines of this part of Chianti, it has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the wine), the kinds of grapes that are used, and why they all have the black rooster on the label. The wines at the first place were fine- inexpensive and plain, and the guy showing us around had the charming habit of using the word "sensible" when he meant "sensitive." And he used it a lot. He also used "plethora" perfectly.

The second place wasn't really a winery. It was a tasting and sales room for one of the largest and snobbiest producers in Italy. It was very clean and bright and professional, unlike the dimly lit garage where we tasted the first wines. They had a machine where you pushed a button and it dispensed 50 grams of wine. As is often the case at these large places, the wines were too young and not really ready to drink. They don't share the good stuff and even the premium wine they dispensed for an extra charge was way too rough to really enjoy it.

After lunch in a cute medieval hill town, (food was good- homemade pasta with mixed mushrooms and roast pork loin- owner got into a bit of a spat with the French couple at the next table and later professed to us that he hated French people),we went to our final stop. This place was, as Arlo Guthrie would say, off the side of a side road, and then up about a kilometer of very bumpy dirt and rock road/driveway. It was absolutely gorgeous. You entered through a line of olive trees on one side and lavender on the other. The view was the best we've seen anywhere. It's apparently on the dividing line between Siena and Florence, so half of the winery was in each territory.

The owner was this guy with long, stringy graying hair, who was happy to first hang out with us while we took pictures of the view and then took us through the whole operation, introducing me to the winemaker, who was in back fixing a tractor. At the first winery, everything was in one big room. At the second, we have no idea where the actual winery is, though you can see pictures of it on the flat screen in the tasting room. Here, it was 3 good sized rooms. We saw his labeling machine, where he explained that the back label was the last thing to go on, because it was different for each county (bilingual for Canada, pregnancy warning for US, etc.) and the private label wine he does for a small restaurant chain in Washington DC.

Then we sat outside in the shade and tasted wine after wine, and the last one was by far the best thing we'd tasted all day. We also tried grappa (bracing!) and dessert wine and even a glass of olive oil (very buttery tasting). And then we finally left. That was a great way to end the day.

One of the things I really liked about the last place it was old and authentic and modern at the same time. For the most part, Italy seems stuck in a time warp. So much of the country's economy is focused on tourism (aside from the wine, I haven't seen a single production enterprise of any size since we've been here) that it can't change. It's too dependent on being cute and beautiful. And it really is cute and very beautiful and the people are terrific. I love walking around medieval villages (driving? not so much fun). But for me at least, it loses some of its charm when the only things in town are souvenir stores, restaurants and gelato stands.

Now we head for something that's a different kind of authentic. We're going to a beach town called Viareggio which seems to be popular with Italians more than foreigners, but at the moment it's mostly known for having had a horrific train derailment and explosion that set a neighborhood on fire, killed 22 and left another dozen critically injured. This happened last week, but they just had a big memorial service today that we saw on TV with 22 numbered coffins sitting on the grass in a park. So I e-mailed the hotel and asked if it was appropriate for visitors and they replied, yes, all the stores are open tomorrow, I guess implying that everything was shut down today.

I'm distracted now by Michael Jackson tributes on TV. These are in English, always a bonus in a place like this (our only other English option is Madonna's "Truth or Dare" with Italian subtitles). I'll check back in tomorrow with pictures.