Go wine-tasting in Tuscany

“The problem was where to taste, but in Italy, minor problems seem to solve themselves, and true to form, after eating at a great little Osteria in San Gimignano, we found a great house wine for an embarrassingly inexpensive price by California standards. The best part was the Winery was only 6 kilometers up the road and less they two kilometers from our hotel. We made an appointment to taste the following afternoon. [...] Andrea’s English wasn’t the best but between it, the few words we had picked up in Italian and similar sounding words in Spanish, we managed to have a great time in the vineyard and on the farm walk he took us on.”

“Our first two tastings were Vernaccia of course, a 2015 batch called Angelica after one of the family’s daughters and a 2014 called Benedetta. They both had a longer palate than the other Vernaccia we had tasted, which makes them good food wines. They would be a natural pairing for shellfish but neither Karen nor I like shellfish so we would pair it with a lightly grilled chicken with a touch of lemon. The Vernaccia were good but we really like reds and in Tuscany, red wine usually means Chianti. The first one we tried was the 2015 Chianti Colli Senesi. It was aged in a steal tank and without the tannin added from a barrel, it had a surprisingly light, enjoyable body. This one was Danny’s favorite of the Chiantis.”

“I still remember my first Chianti wine tour. I showed up wearing white (rookie mistake!), knew absolutely nothing about "legs" or "tannins," and was way too intimidated to spit anything out. [...] My first morning driving through the Tuscan countryside was like that. The October sun was burning off the morning mist, cypress trees stood like sentinels along winding roads, and I honestly couldn't tell if I was more excited about the scenery or the wine awaiting at our first stop.”