Under the Tuscan Sun

Saturday was possibly one of the best days I have had since I got here!  I am a total wine snob now.  Especially when it comes to the red wines.  In fact, like the Italians, I won’t even bother with white wines any more! J  I learned so much about how to taste wine, how to describe the tastes, how to smell, how to see the alcohol content of the wine…ect. ect.  We first went to Montecino, a small town North of Siena, about two hours from Florence by bus.  We were first able to tour the ancient Renaissance castle, which the main part is now used for wine tasting.  Then we got to taste our first wine of the day, a Brunello.  

Apparently this is the most famous of the Tuscan wines…I really had a lot to learn considering I had not even heard of this.  We had a 2003 vintage, which I liked, but didn’t happen to be my favorite of the day.  Although I shouldn’t put this wine down because it is possibly o

ne of the best wines I have ever tasted.  Apparently, 2001 was the best year for Tuscan wines and 2002 is “absolute piss,” as Mossimo, our guide told us.  After that, we went to Montepulciano.  Apparently, these two towns have a rivalry going with which one produces the best wine.  I think Montepulciano was best, but I got to taste more wines from the region, so maybe that had something to do with it.  We had lunch in a small restaurant that Jack Nicholson apparently frequents. (so says the restaurant, considering there are large photos of him on the outside…heck, maybe the owner just really loves Jack, who knows…)  We had a huge four course lunch with a different wine pairing for each course.  (Now should be the time to mention that wine tasting in Italy is a little different from in the states.  Instead of getting a sip which you taste and then spit out, the Italians fill your glass and expect you to taste the wine as you drink it.  All of it.)  Needless to say, it was a rowdy bus ride home! J  I had to try chicken liver 

pâté for an appetizer.  It was pretty darn gross.  (And to top that one off, tonight, Monday, Mauro prepared this delicacy for Christy and me as part of our dinner…I just can’t escape the pâté!)  For a first course we had Pici Bolognese, which is basically fat spaghetti, almost worm-like, but it was some of the best pasta ever! For a main course we had pork in a plum sauce.  And for desert, we had the best tiramisu on the face of the planet!!  I think my favorite wine pairing was the pasta course. 

Although I am still not educated enough to know why I liked that pairing more than the others.  After lunch we stumbled on out to the vineyards, where the wine we drank came from.  We got to walk through the vineyards, taste the grapes right off the vine, see all the casks (both metal and oak), and taste their special reserve label wine.  That was actually my favorite wine, but it also happened to be the most expensive.  What can I say, I have expensive tastes…  

But it was cool because the reserve label wines had the photography of a famous photographer from the area.  (Think Jones Soda labels to the extreme…)  The grapes from the vineyard were fantastic.  They were different from a normal grape.  They had very thick skins, which they end up using later to make a liquor called grappa.  And they are possibly the juiciest little morsels ever.  “They even tasted purple.”  Our last stop on the tour was Piensa, where the famous pecorino cheese is made.  The entire town smelled of cheese, which was actually not as good as it sounds.  But it was fantastic to sit, eating fresh cheese, watching the sun go down over the vineyards.  If possible, I will one day own a villa there.  It will happen; I just have to get famous first.  This was definitely one of the best Italy days.  When I pictured Italy in my head, this is exactly the type of day I pictured.

Sunday morning I participated in ‘Corri la Vita,’ ‘Run for Life,’ which was a run/walk supporting beast cancer.  (Well, supporting finding a cure for breast cancer… atleast I don’t think it was in favor of it…)  But it was a 5k that went up over the hill of Piazza le Michelangelo, through the woods, and back down over the Arno river.  It was a very beautiful run!  And such a fabulous way to start a Sunday morning.  Plus, we got free pot holders for participating.  We then ran into a parade on our walk home.  There were lots of men in hats with feathers, wearing plaid.  I thought it was their version of the masons, but no such luck.  Two men saw that Christy and I were dressed the same and still had our numbers on…so they struck up a conversation with us starting off with asking if we won the race.  (No, but thanks for rubbing it in some more…)  but they told us that it was a parade of the Alpini Soldiers.  These are the men (Well, these old fat men were obviously retired) that protect the Italian border of the Alps.  Apparently it’s a big deal, which we happened to know nothing about.  But the old men were cute and they took pictures of us and we got pictures of them…

We probably have the most interesting Sunday nights here.  Last Sunday night we went to Piazza Santo Spiritu, which we renamed Piazza della Hippie.  We had dinner and ended up staying for a concert because he heard the band warming up, and they sounded incredible and the lead singer spoke perfect English.  The bad played a lot of blues stuff like Blues Brothers, some Aretha, etc.  It turns out the lead singer was from New Jersey.  She was so funny because she was announcing all the members of the band, in perfect Italian, saying “on sax, Francesco… on piano, Luca…” and then she said “Mi chiamo SUSAN.”  Whitest name ever! Christy, Kellen, and I just looked at each other and said in unison, “Yup, American”… But we went and talked to her after the concert and she was a really cool woman.  She was a student here like us, over 16 years ago, and she ended up back here and hasn’t left.  I would love to one day have a story like that!  She was such a great sport through the whole concert too because there were lots of people there that were obviously very high or drunk or on something, or needed to be on something.  For some reason there were also quite a few people of questionable gender there as well.  We played a fun game called ‘Man or Woman?’  But there was one woman, who actually liked to be called a man, it turns out, who kept getting up on stage and asking Susan to dance with him.  It was hilarious!  Susan looked a little thrown off, but just kept on singing, until the person took the microphone from here to tell everyone that Susan is a lying American woman.  Possibly the funniest concert ever.  Finally the ‘man’ was thrown out of the free concert, but not before getting angry and throwing chairs.  Oh, Italy.  As Lindsey tells us, “This country is peaceful, but the people here sure have a lot of anger in them!”

Well, then, last night, we decided we needed to have a picnic up on Piazza le Michelangelo and watch the sunset.  So, we are sitting on a blanket enjoying our cheese and crackers, and a German couple walks up and notices that John, a guy in our group has brought his guitar with him.  The man asks if he can play it, and just starts busting out some Simon & Garfunkle, Bob Dylan, John Denver, and basically just puts on a little concert for us all.  His wife buys use three bottles of wine, which they consumed most of, and we just hung out having a picnic with the German hippies.  The guy looked a little like Willie Nelson, but his name was Axil, and his wife was Sabina, who had the longest blondest hair on the planet.  By the end of the night they were both pretty drunk and all the more entertaining.  Sabina kept asking John to play the Rolling Stones’s song Angie because Axil would never play it for her and she just loved that song so much!  She must have asked him like four different times.  Pretty darn entertaining!!  They were apparently camping up there with lots of other hippies.  Apparently that’s hippie central too.  We do know where to find them now!