We woke up to beautiful blue skies again on this day and it feels like we are all walking on the egg shells of weather as we progress through the week. Still no rain, even though it had been forecasted to rain every day. Bad for the crops, but good for visitors trying to hop into a week in late fall without too much rain.
Our wine tasting lunch wasn’t until 12:30pm, but a lot of my morning was spent trying to coordinate around the evening plans. The schedule called for a dinner at a local cheese farm. By now, everyone is ready for a night to do their own thing and at the same time, it isn’t easy to back out of plans to a local small family business that may have hired staff and purchased ingredients for the evening visit. Trying to be sensitive to all parties involved, I did a lot of coordination around pulling us out of the dinner in time to not harm the business and giving the group the freedom to do what they wanted that evening. Even if it was just to relax back in their own rooms.
Around noon, I did the now regular tap on Heidi and Jeff’s door downstairs signaling I was ready and we could head to the car to depart. I really appreciated their enthusiasm and that they were always ready right on time to head to the next event. Heidi was in the later stages of the head cold she picked up from someone earlier in the trip and said she was on the mend. Even so, when she did a fully covered sneeze in the car on the way up to the wine tasting, my reflexes immediately went to roll the window down. “Sorry,” I said, “I’ve spent 2 years watching how sneeze particles travel, I think the fresh air will do us all good.” She laughed and said, “No worries, I agree, Jeff and I have been watching those same YouTube videos.”
With the pace we are all on eating, drinking, the chill in the air, together all the time, passing and sharing food plates, the head cold is being passed around. I’m trying to take all precautions. Almost two years into the pandemic, I forgot what it a head cold was even like. I haven’t had this cocktail of conditions hit my immune system in a long time. Would all of the vitamins I am taking every day, the continual hand sanitizer, the masks – would they really do their thing? Time would tell.
We arrive at Tornesi Winery in Montalcino right on time at 12:30pm. It is a picture perfect day and the setting on a hill is beautiful. Their specialty is Brunello wines, of course, but they also produce Vin Santo and Olive Oil. A family run business, I enjoyed the tour and the reminders that a Brunello is made from 100% sangiovese grape. A Brunello is like a Cabernet in that they are both rich, full-bodied wines. The difference is that a Cabernet is typically blended with Merlot, Cab Franc, Pettit Verdot or Malbec. A Brunello must be in the barrel for 5 years. The lesser wine they make from the same Sangiovese grape is a Rosso. The Rosso is the younger sibling of the Brunello and only needs to age 3 years in the barrel.
The farm this land is on has been in the family since 1865 and the owner, together with his wife and daughters have adopted all organic methods to grow their vineyards and olive groves. All production -related work is done by hand. We were toured through their production room and they are so happy to have the aid of machines now that that help them bottle 1,511 bottles per hour. One full size barrel produces about 12,000 bottles of wine. She also took us into the label and corking room to show us where and how that is done. They produce DOCG (Denomination of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin) wines, which are the highest designation of quality among Italian wines. When the wine barrels are tested for this designation, they get 2 opportunities to pass the test. Obviously, with a 5-year wait to production, it’s a big loss if it doesn’t pass. Thankfully, they haven’t had a situation where that has ever happened for them.
Since it is such a nice sunny day, they seat us outside and lead us to a table with a beautiful view. I loved coming to this winery because it was new for me on this trip and it was nice to have a new experience. I sat next to Lynnette, who has a heart of gold and who I adore. She shares with me that she has a head cold now, but that she took lots of meds this morning to hopefully keep it at bay. Still, I can see her little watery eyes and her rosy nose and my heart goes out to her. It is an awful thing to spend all of this money to travel internationally and taste all of these wines and delicious foods when you aren’t 100%.
What followed next, was the the most delicious meal (I do believe) I have ever enjoyed at a ‘wine tasting.’ Each course was so flavorful and made by the grandma in the kitchen. We all enjoyed this lunch so much and each of the wines they were pairing with the courses. It was going to be our last sunny day and moments in the full sunshine. It made me think of the movie Shawshank Redemption. When Andy bought the boys the beers on the roof and they all were having their moment in the sunshine on a break. Of course, I’m not trying to draw any parallels here that being in Italy is similar to being in prison, but perhaps the state of the world the last 2 years has felt like a prison of many sorts – and finally we were having our moment on the rooftop in freedom in Italy.
