Tuscany: Castellina in Chianti and Poggio Amorelli

At the end of our first week in northern Tuscany, we made a trip to Castellina in Chianti where we tasted some wines and enjoyed the beautiful vineyards.  Once we got into the Chianti region, we saw labels with black cockerels (the sign of a true Chianti Classico) everywhere.

I really enjoyed having a car and driving through this beautiful landscape. 

We wandered into a little winery called Casa Emma, where they could not accommodate us for a full tour and tasting because we had not made an appointment, but they generously let us sample some of their chiantis and then they made a huge fuss over Lola. 

We also made our way to Poggio Amorelli, where we enjoyed a proper winery tour and tasting.

 

Our guide was so excited about the American oak that they used for their chianti riservas - boasting that the wood came from Canton, Ohio!  We nearly split our sides laughing to see something so close to Michael's hometown in Italy.  I guess it's really true that whether something is exotic depends on your perspective.

U.S.A.

We got to see some really old wines that they have been keeping from the early 1970s and 80s.  These wines are older than I am - what a mind boggling thought!

 

Then we sat down to a tasting, which cost a whopping Euro25 per person, but they gave us an enormous tasting menu consisting of 5 or 6 wines, balsamic vinaigrette and olive oil.

10 year versus 20 year old balsamic!

We learned quite a bit about balsamic vinegar (it's made from grape must!  Really good balsamic vinegar doesn't actually contain any vinegar!) and just had a generally great time.  We picked up a bottle of chianti classico, a bottle of chianti riserva, and a bottle of the 20 year old balsamic vinegar (which was quite a splurge, costing way more than the wine)!

 

I'm not sure Lola had any idea what was going on, but she did get to see some sheep up close for the first time.  We also let her try some of the 20 year balsamic vinegar, and I am not joking when I say that she went crazy for it.  It's uncanny, but she and I seem to share a lot of the same taste preferences.

 Here are my sister and I outside, giddy and perhaps a bit tipsy after our mammoth tasting.  She gifted me the beautiful pink bag (from Everlane) and I gifted her her cool looking sunglasses (from Dior).  I'm also wearing a white shirt that my parents bought for me from their travels in France.  I like that we like to gift each other stuff!

After leaving Poggio Amorelli, we stopped at a little wine shop set in a cool garage on our way home, where I bought dessert wine for my parents, and grappa and a nifty, supremely delicate tulip-shaped grappa glass (which I am proud to report made it back to Hong Kong unscathed) for Michael.