Wine in Italy
Their Sangiovese is a whole nother story.....Nice bright whites as well.
Here are some wine notes for my wine lovers.
Here in the states, the Sangiovese grape does not interest me. I was very pleasantly surprised at the wide profile of the grape, terroir and climate influences. Amazing!
Keeping it very simple: Chianti Wine Region - I found the wines by and large fruit forward, smooth and lighter in general. They drink wine at any time of the day over there - as in lunch. Where as here at home, usually an end of the work day mindset.
When we particularly liked a bottle we took pictures of the labels front and back.
While in Rome:
Again, if we liked the bottle we took photos. This was at a little Restaurant near our hotel room. We met another artist from Germany - Klaus. We exchanged biz cards and I have since learned he is a Sennelier Art Rep. I bought a set of Sennelier Watercolors when I arrived in Paris!
The Bottom two - describe the wine from the Coastal Tuscan Regions. Very nice!
Montepulciano:
While we were at the Cignella Wine Resort we got to tour and do a tasting at the Ricci Winery in Montepulciano. This winery has been making wine on site since the 13th Century! Emilio did our tour and he was shocked to know that we were from San Angelo, close to Fredericksburg where he knows the owner of the Italian Winery right there on the corner. He about fell over when we told him we met his friend.
The history here is mind blowing.
We have a case of wine coming from here as well. The top photos are the sales room and where the tour ended. The high vaulted wine room with huge casks are no longer in use. That room looks like a Church. Study it. The altar at the front. They believe the “blood of Christ” - the wine, deserved a Cathedral of it’s own. They held 13000 gallons of wine! The Ricci home and the winery are on top of the cave.
Dene is standing in the original Etruscan cave carved out in 700 bc? I can’t remember the whole story. The word Ricci means Hedgehog? The original guy who carved out this place was a hermit. He watched the Hedgehogs and observed if they were frantic it was going to rain the next day. If they were calm - the weather was going to be nice. He was being tried for being a witch / heretic; and the local church official decided instead that God was speaking to him through the Hedgehogs and spared his life. The last photo on the lower right therefore shows the Sun (God) with beams going down on the Hedgehog. He was the Ricci of Ricci’s - and the namesake for the Winery. Great story!
If you search it on YouTube - there are several videos of the place. Here is one
Val d’Orcia:
The bottom two photos. Brunello Wine. This was amazing. Full bodied Sangiovese as it can not be bottled until from 5 YEARS from the date it was crushed. As stated above. There is a case on it’s way here.
If you kinda look at the background, you see wisteria. We had gone to the other end of the little town we were in San Quirico de Orcia. There we found a little Antique / second had store that I brought a couple items home from. We were walking into the middle, up the street and stumbled into the most amazing restaurant! From the front you would never know about the whole back patio! The wisteria was everywhere and likely where my allergies hit me. The weather was lightly drizzling on an off. We were under an umbrella - not a problem. The food was amazing! So was that wine! We drove to Montalcino and sent a case home. (not arrived yet.)
The food, service and setting were wonderful. I was startled when the local turtle walked by. A great day! My memory was this was the night we had soup for dinner and a salad.
Santa Marinella:
The first 2 weeks of our trip we had 70 degree sunny weather. The second 2 weeks it was foggy in the mornings, burn off to partly sunny partly cloudy day. Usually drizzled in there somewhere along the way. Glad I had my raincoat packed after all.
When we got back on the coast the last 3 nights / days were warm and sunny. I got a bit of sun sitting out on that deck.
The top 2 are a white wine that is very similar to a Sauv. Blanc. (or maybe it was a Sauv. Blanc) and the bottom a bright crisp for hot days on that beech front patio. I would compare to a Pino Grise.
If you are a wine lover - you might try to use Google Translate / camera and read more about them yourself. We enjoyed these and taking pictures of front and back give us something to search for in a wine store some day. We are not expensive wine geeks. We like good wines at any price point.
Leave me your comments - Have you tried / do you know any of these wines?
If you are seeing this first - there is a whole separate post on the Month in Italy. Be sure to go to my home page and look it up.
I will eventually be writing a Travel guide with even more details. Hotel Names, Restaurants, sight seeing tips. Tour guides we used. It will be an e-book.
