Italian Wine, Private Italy Tours, Rome

More Fun With Google Wine Tours…Lazio Edition

Leave a comment

Tonight we did some broiled tuna steaks with radicchio and capers in olive oil, and I thought it called for some vino bianco for the sauce.  A quick trip to Sovereignty Wines was required, and I noticed they had a special on Seiano Bianco, a dark straw colored IGT offering from a little town called Teverina in the Viterbo area, just south of Orvieto.  It’s on a ridiculous sale for a price I won’t even mention, but expect to pay $9 or so on average.  11.5% ABV, and very much the right wine for a dish like this.  As you can probably guess, after dinner we were dying to learn more about the village where this came from.

seiano 1

As you can see above, looking up Teverina gets you to the rolling hills east of Lago di Bolsena, a glacial lake carved into the Lazio countryside.  Let’s click onward:

seiano 2
Looks pretty agrarian with a decent sized town at the core.  You’ll notice it’s right on the edge of what’s considered Lazio and what’s Umbria.  Neat.

seiano 3Lovely.  The city center comes into view, as do some rows of local vineyards tucked neatly into the hillsides.  Time for a street view:

seiano 4

As you meander down a few clicks from where the offices for Seiano are reported via Google, you arrive at a little bend in the road where the local vino is sourced.  Check out those well-trained grapes growing on the sun-drenched Lazio slopes with Umbrian hills in the background.  Another town that looks like it’s worth a visit.  Checking out the rest of the town, you can’t help but love the narrow decidedly *not* SUV friendly streets:

Screen shot 2014-11-09 at 9.49.57 PM

This place looks pretty livable:

Screen shot 2014-11-09 at 9.53.10 PM

The hills off in the distance from the city center:

Screen shot 2014-11-09 at 9.59.50 PM

To borrow from Tony Bourdain, this place does not suck.

Screen shot 2014-11-09 at 10.09.34 PM

A side benefit–if you were to make it here, you’d be a short jaunt from Orvieto (also known for great white wines, which, if you’re reading this, you probably already know), and not too much further south to go explore the Tivoli Gardens.

EDITED TO ADD:  Looks like the wine makers run a small overnight accommodation that looks very, VERY inviting.  If you want to go, Sassi Italy Tours can get you there.  Let us know.

Private Italy Tours

Want To Learn To Draw Like This?

Leave a comment

little boy portraitWell….odds are pretty strong that unless your name is Raphaello Sanzio or Michelangelo Buonarroti, you won’t ever be this good, but we can guarantee we’ll be able to show you what it takes to do this sort of thing and be able to appreciate the ridiculous level of talent Raphael Sassi has.  There’s no better way to do so than to stand in front of the works of the masters themselves and have a modern virtuoso painter and drawer like Raphael pointing out the genius and the technique of the Renaissance masters.

Italian Food, Italian Wine, Private Italy Tours

Fun With Wine And Google!

8 Comments

While Doug is off in Italy running tours, we’re home working and having a relaxing family night.  While we don’t have the luxury of being in Italy tonight, here’s a fun alternative that just might be the next best thing.

It’s Friday, and thus we are enjoying a late dinner and a bottle of Giribaldi’s Dolcetto d’Alba (Crottino, 2012…an *excellent* buy at $10 at my local fine wine purveyor), which just tastes like…Italy!  Tannic, little of the frivolous fruitiness sometimes ascribed to Dolcetto, and perfect with food.  On the back of the bottle, I note that it is produced and bottled in Rodello, Italy, a sleepy little village in Piemonte.  Using Google, you can actually go see exactly where your grapes are grown.  It is a way fun to brainstorm for places to go exploring in Italy AND feel connected to the artisanal nature of wine making in the foothills of the Alps.  Looking up Azienda Giribaldi, Rodello, Italia, Google takes me here:

Screen shot 1
Green hills, curvy hillside roads, and terra cotta roofs, what’s not to like?  Needless to say we’re intrigued, and it’s time to click the zoom in button:

Screen shot 2
Even better.  Rows of grapes and plots of farmland can now be made out from what feels like a 20,000ft view.  I feel the aura of the place already.  Lovely.

Screen shot 3
Another click or two and our virtual tour of Rodello clearly shows the individual houses near the farm plots and rows and rows in the vineyard.  Yes.  Time to click for the street view:

Screen shot 4
And there it is–not overly dramatic, just an understated structure but with vaguely Palladian symmetry about it that certainly looks inviting.  That’s where our wine comes from!  A small vintner on a hillside in Piemonte labors to produce something in the crowded marketplace that is our wine, and thanks to the distributor’s efforts and the sharp eye and palate of our friends across the street at Sovereignty Wines here in Colorado Springs, we’re able to enjoy it.  It’s neat when you think about it for even a moment.  Let’s explore further:

Screen shot 5

And we see minimalist sign inviting us into explore Azienda Giribaldi.  Most of the places that are “must see” for first or second Italy visitors are within walking distance of train stations.  I’m sensing that a visit to Piemonte to visit local grape-growers is as good a reason as any to rent a car!  You can see the shadow of Google’s robot-on-the-car in the lower left.  Moving deeper into the vineyard:

Screen shot 6Well…that’s certainly not ugly.  That’s where my Barbaresco, my Dolcetto, my Gavi are coming from?  Yes, let’s go visit, and soon.  (Composes email to the Giribaldi folks about a visit this spring–who’s in?).

Screen shot 7

Spring 2015:  who wants to visit Alba and taste the best wines in the world?  Taking applications to go on an adventure here.

Italian Wine, Private Italy Tours

Piemonte

Leave a comment

The king of wine regions, with apologies to you Francophiles.  Simply put, nothing beats nebbiolo!

A quick roundup of the highlights via Elaine of CarpeTravel fame that’s definitely worth a read.  Come see it with us!

20140214-194426.jpg

Italian Food

Mangiamo…Lentemente!

Leave a comment

This is so important to understanding Italian culture and culinary acumen.

It’s a hard to explain to folks who haven’t experienced it, but enjoying food in Italy is a process as much as an event–it’s time, place, environment. It’s taking in your surroundings and absorbing the local atmosphere. It’s taking time to reflect while savoring.

It’s not meant to include styrofoam.

It’s everything a meal should be.

I’d be surprised to learn the Italians even have a phrase for slow food–for them the concept is just what they call “eating.”

001

Italian Food, Veneto

Veggies in Venice

Leave a comment

Tony Bourdain quipped during a visit to Emiglia Romagna that more Americans would eat their vegetables if they tasted like the veggies you can enjoy in Italy.  We’re inclined to think he’s correct.  This quick visit to Sant’Erasmo (the garden island of Venice) will have you agreeing as well.

San_Erasmo

Italian Food, Italian Wine, Veneto, Venice

Risotto–It’s What’s For Dinner (I Wish)

Leave a comment

001

As the sun sets on a lovely Saturday afternoon in fall, it makes me wish I was on Burano this afternoon enjoying a plate of Trattoria Da Romano’s timeless, unequaled, and definitive seafood risotto.

It’s a dish made with love, served with precision, and eaten with gusto.  Try as I might, I can’t quite replicate it in my home kitchen–you need that Venetian fish broth!  Will have it again soon, but you can define life in terms of days spent in Venice, and days not spent in Venice.

Pair it with a brolettino (a fabulous Lugana).

Guided tours of Italy in a small, private setting