7.04.2007 Independence Day Wine Tasting

We rented a car this day and went wine tasting with two other girls from the hostel. We went to 4 different vineyards, beginning with one called Melini. The Tuscan countryside is beautiful, and we stopped to take pictures at a sunflower field. This would be a place we could easily stay at for months. There were vineyards and olive groves everywhere we looked. We ended up buying a lot of wine today because the vineyards would charge 4 euro for a wine tasting, but it was free with a purchase of a bottle. Every place had a bottle for at least 4 Euro, so it was not worth it NOT to buy wine.

Melini’s had 11 different wines, all of which we tasted. We probably were only supposed to choose a few, but the woman let us try them all. The region actually makes some good white wines too even though that is not what it is known for.

Although there are a ton of vineyards along the countryside, there aren’t really signs for all of them, and there were a few we stumbled upon by accident. One of these was Il Cerreto, which had a gorgeous view and a bed and breakfast. They said they did “tastings,” but basically the guy opened an entire bottle for us, and the first pours he gave us emptied out half the bottle. When we asked if we should try some of the other wines, he said “oh, you want more?” and emptied out the rest of the bottle in our glasses, so we ended up buying it and 4 other bottles of Chianti Classico on top of that. He tried to give us the first bottle for free, but the owner was a party pooper. After Il Cerreto, we stopped by another tasting room that wasn’t as impressionable and bought some unique tasting chardonnay.

The last place we went to was amazing again. Some president on Wall Street had just purchased 2,800 Euro worth of wine, and the guy there was probably in particularly good spirits. We tried tons of wine again and had free food. There were expensive hams, bruschetta, and some really fantastic jams, which we tried to buy, but they were not for sale because the guy had gotten them at some obscure store elsewhere L. Some family came through, ate a tray of food (basically their dinner), and left without buying anything.

We came back, moved out of the hostel and into the villa next door, cooked some pasta, then joined other hostel mates for some drinks. We toasted with other Americans for the 4^th of July, and noted that most of us do not know all the words to the national anthem.