Wine Festival in Chianti
September 10th
One of the reasons that we scheduled this trip when we did was to accomodate a couple of local festivals that were happening during September. This weekend is the annual Chianti festival taking place in Greve this weekend. We took the bus from Florence to Greve. It was a little bit of a project to get on the bus but not too bad. Nothing but locals mostly working class younger people. It was a beautiful ride from Florence to Chianti. Took about an hour through some beautiful countryside, vineyards, olive groves and quaint little towns. We arrived in Greve about 2 PM and got our tickets. It was 10 Euros for 7 tastes. 4 Chianti classico and 3 Reserva. We had slept so late in the morning that we had missed the hotel's breakfast service. Oh well, it won't hurt us to skip a meal or two. We decided that we better put some food on our stomachs to absorb all the wine we would be driniking. Greve is a great little town with a fairly large central piazza where the wine tasting was all setup. Lining the piazza were lot's of shops and restaurants many of them with outdoor dinning. We decided on one because Linda was in the mood for pizza, so we sit down at a recently vacated 2 top outdoors under the shade of a canvas covering. The waiter asks us "se pronto" (are you ready) and Linda goes first with her pizza order. Oh no pizza till dinner the waiter says. He's standing about 10 feet away from a big sign just above the door that say's "Pizzaria". It didn't say dinner pizza, but OK, so Linda quickly change her order to pasta pomodoro. I noticed that they had crustone con lardo on the menu so I order that and the papardelle con cingalia. I just can't stop myself from ordering something that I can't get anywhere else and both of these are tuscan specialties. Lardo is, just as it sounds a speally cured piece of pig fat, shaved very thin and put on top of bread as an antipasto. I know it sounds kind of gross but I'm not eating this ever day, and it's not any worse than eating bread with butter. It was great. It had a little spice on it which I think was pepper and nutmeg which I hadn't expected. Very simple but good.
One of the reasons that we scheduled this trip when we did was to accomodate a couple of local festivals that were happening during September. This weekend is the annual Chianti festival taking place in Greve this weekend. We took the bus from Florence to Greve. It was a little bit of a project to get on the bus but not too bad. Nothing but locals mostly working class younger people. It was a beautiful ride from Florence to Chianti. Took about an hour through some beautiful countryside, vineyards, olive groves and quaint little towns. We arrived in Greve about 2 PM and got our tickets. It was 10 Euros for 7 tastes. 4 Chianti classico and 3 Reserva. We had slept so late in the morning that we had missed the hotel's breakfast service. Oh well, it won't hurt us to skip a meal or two. We decided that we better put some food on our stomachs to absorb all the wine we would be driniking. Greve is a great little town with a fairly large central piazza where the wine tasting was all setup. Lining the piazza were lot's of shops and restaurants many of them with outdoor dinning. We decided on one because Linda was in the mood for pizza, so we sit down at a recently vacated 2 top outdoors under the shade of a canvas covering. The waiter asks us "se pronto" (are you ready) and Linda goes first with her pizza order. Oh no pizza till dinner the waiter says. He's standing about 10 feet away from a big sign just above the door that say's "Pizzaria". It didn't say dinner pizza, but OK, so Linda quickly change her order to pasta pomodoro. I noticed that they had crustone con lardo on the menu so I order that and the papardelle con cingalia. I just can't stop myself from ordering something that I can't get anywhere else and both of these are tuscan specialties. Lardo is, just as it sounds a speally cured piece of pig fat, shaved very thin and put on top of bread as an antipasto. I know it sounds kind of gross but I'm not eating this ever day, and it's not any worse than eating bread with butter. It was great. It had a little spice on it which I think was pepper and nutmeg which I hadn't expected. Very simple but good.
Crustone con Lardo
Paparelli con cingalia
I love papardelle and I love cingalia. I think the taste is similar to pork but a little more full bodied. It had been brasied with red wine a little tomato sauce, until it was falling apart. That's right in my wheelhouse. I love that and with the eggieness of the pasta, and because it is so wide it has a little chew to it. It was fantasitic.
Next on to the serious business of wine tasting. Mostly small producers very few of them never get to the US, but all of them very proud of their Chianti Classico. There was even a few of them there that had some grapes that were harvested that day. I was hoping there would be some actual Sangiovese grape from which Chianti classico is made. I asked if I could taste and they obliged. They were sweeter than I had expected and very juicy with smallish berries. Suffice to say that we had a lot of fun and didn't repeat yesterday incident of enjoying too many negroni's.
Castello VicchioMaggio
Oh I almost forgot, in Greve, they have a salumiria that is the mecca of all things pork. It was killing me. No pork products allowed back into the US. Damn the FDA!!!
obviously not Linda's idea, with her new friend Bob
Another great day in Tuscan! Am I lucky or what!
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