Tuscan Vineyard

domenica, 19 giugno 2016

Ciao!

We now have further support for our earlier hypothesis: Kelsey does not like wine. Despite that fact, we still had an absolutely lovely day with our visit to a vineyard and winery.

When we arrived, we began with a cooking demo of how to make fresh pasta. We were taught by a sweet Italian lady with one of the coordinators of our trip translating for her. She showed us how to make the pasta, singing along the way, plus she had a nice sense of humor, playfully teasing the student who had been picked to help prepare the pasta. Once she had the dough ready, we were able to help with rolling out the pasta, which was fun to try!

Making fresh pasta!!

After the cooking demo, we had a tour of the winery and learned about the history of the place which originally was a farmhouse from the 1500s. It was such a charming area and once again, Kelsey and I enjoyed having a nice escape from the craziness of the city to be able to relax a bit. 

I believe our guide said that is Sienna off in the distance

There were lots of barrels of wine!

After the tour, we had a wine tasting and tried two of the wines that they produced. I enjoyed them. Kelsey choked them down.  Fortunately, she avoided making all of the faces that she made when we had a glass of wine on her birthday. As for me, I've decided that wines are sort of like literature. Some people are able to get so much out of them and describe in such detail all of the subtleties of each one and I'm left thinking to myself, "Well that was nice, but I have no idea how to describe the differences between that wine and the last one."

Now that we've seen where it is made...

Following the wine tasting and tour, we had a very large lunch that was so delicious and sampled a couple of other wines with the meal (still all red wines as that is primarily what they make there).

It was all so delicious!!

After lunch, we had an hour of free time before boarding the bus to return to Rome. Kelsey and I went wandering through the trails, both through the woods and along the edge of the vineyard. We enjoyed being in the great outdoors and also just having a bit of time to ourselves to relax. Overall, it was a wonderful day!!

There's one more bit that I must add: a commentary on Italian roads. The roads here are quite narrow. Charter buses are still quite large. That makes for a bad combination. On our way back into Rome, the bus tried going down a very narrow road lined with parked cars. That turned into quite a spectacle as we just barely made it through. Meanwhile, a very long line of cars piled up behind us and people were actually getting out of there cars while they waited for us to be able to pass through. It was quite the ride home, I must say!

La campagna è bello,

Allison and Kelsey