And so it began.
The tour guide started the wine tasting. He poured us some wine of the first tasting, then he poured himself a little bit more wine. This was going to be fun!
Leonardo our guide and interpretor.
The Wine Tasting
After a couple tastings, the guys we mentioned in Tuscan Farmhouse I – Meeting Up and Getting There that we had picked up along the way joined us.
This may be a good time to mention that the wine was really good. Part of the tasting included some phenomenal cheese. Unusual cheese. Cheese that we had never tasted before.
We love cheese, and the selection and wine pairing was truly incredible. We asked if we could buy some to take with us, and were promptly told no. The reason being their cheeses are not sold in stores, which makes them incredibly unique.
Basically, all the local farmers make their own cheese and trade only with each other. Oh, to be a part of that community!
Part of the tasting was an explanation of wines and labels in Italy. Different hills are able to use different labels as established and determined by the Ministry of Agriculture (Ministro Delle Risorse Agricole, Alimentari e Forestali).
They have really good wine and it didn’t cost that much!
The Dinner
With the owner being the driver, bed and breakfast owner, vintner, and now the chef, we were wondering what to expect. Wow. This guy could do it all.
In total, we were part of a group of about 20 people. It looked like a couple of professors from a local university and two small families. Didn’t see that coming.
Trying to build the menu from memory and minimal pictures 5 years after the experience for this blog was a bit of a challenge. This we know. We had a six course meal. Served family style. We had soup, gnochhi, thinly sliced veal with gravy, cooked vegetables, cheese and fruit, then dolce with coffee.
The food was every bit of the anticipation. It was cooked Tuscan style and seasoned to perfection. Score another one for our host Roberto.
The After Party
There’s not really supposed to be an after party. As is normal with the tours you book, there’s usually about an hour to get to your destination, two hours for the wine tasting and dinner, then an hour back. We got picked up at 5, so wine tasting and dinner between 6-8, then home by 9.
Once the meal was complete the owner joined us for drinks. We drank more wine, and he even brought out his personal brandy. Like the cheese, it was made by someone local. It was really good.
And we sang songs. No, we’re not going to show the video. Suffice it to say there was some pretty bad off key singing (other than Gary, of course) after a lot of alchohol had been consumed. That does help to explain how much fun we had though!
At one point in the evening, Leonardo says to us “The owner wants to know if it’s OK to take you home now?”. Like we were the ones in charge and making that decision. We looked at the time and it was midnight…
By the time we got back to the train station, it was 1am in the morning. That meant our driver didn’t get home till 2am.
What a fabulous time we had, we would definitely do that again!
We waited until a little over three years before drinking the wine we brought home. It was as good as we remembered at the winery.