Alright, after a few days of touring around Rome, Scott, Elli, Eric and Stephanie split off north to Bologna, and a couple of days later Jessah, Kyra and myself left Rome for Florence.
Florence was the home of Michelangelo, and when he wasn't being harassed by the Pope to do stuff like paint the Sistine Chapel or engineer St. Peter's Basilica in Rome (both of which we toured), he was home doing things like sculpting David.
Our hotel is only a block from the Duomo, and about 5 blocks from the Academia, where they keep David.
Florence is also the capital of Tuscany. Tuscany is a wonderfully beautiful area, and is famous for producing Sangiovese grapes, which are used to make the famous Chianti Classico wine.
Friday we hired a guide, Pierre, and he took us on an 8+ hour wine tour of Tuscany. Frankly this may be my favorite thing we've done on the trip thus far. We drove all around the Tuscan countryside, and visited two artisinal producers in the Chianti Classico region. Chianti Classico is a legally delineated region of Tuscany - Italy has extremely precise regulations when it comes to what types of wines can be produced where.
This is pretty much what most of Tuscany looks like. Rolling hills of vineyards. It's very beautiful.
Our first winery was Villa Cafaggio in the Chianti Classico region. ( http://www.villacafaggio.it/ ) We tried four wines. The first two were DOCG Chianti Classicos (DOCG is a governmental regulation that dictates how the wine is made). The third was another 100% Sangiovese, but it's what's called an IGT, which means they don't have to follow the rules. Sometimes they come out better than the DOCGs. This was a 2000 vintage, and in my opinion was the best of the four. The fourth was a 2005 IGT Cab, and also very good.
Time to try some wine! Pierre, our tour guide, helped pour.
Both vineyards that we visited today were also producers of olive oil. It was spectacular!
Before we traveled to our second winery of the day, we stopped in the small town of Panzano. There was a butcher there that runs a restaurant: Antica Macelleria Cecchini (http://www.dariocecchini.com/) This guy was a badass, and the food was outstanding!
Our last winery of the day saw us tasting four wines under the beautiful blue Tuscan sky.
This was a very tiny vineyard. The whole place is run by about half a dozen folks. But the wines were quite nice indeed. Again the first three were 100% Sangiovese. This vineyard is a biodynamic vineyard, similar in style to Grgich Hills (which I talk about frequently). The bottles with the pink stripes on the label are DOC wines, and the ones with the red circle sticker with a black rooster are certified Chianti Classico. The fourth wine was a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot. I had a hard time picking a favorite, but they were all good.
So yeah - good food and wine in the Tuscan countryside. That's how I'd like to spend everyday.
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