29 May Somewhere in Tuscany

29 May spending 2 nights in Montepulciano

An early departure from the hotel in Venice with a boat ride to the mainland to board our bus.  Today we continued driving along the Adriatic coast down to a town called Ravenna.  Along the way the road was through the Po River Valley.  The land was flat, and there are a lot of levies to protect the fertile farm land.  It looks like there's wheat, corn and fruit trees.  We've passed a lot of trees in rows and the conclusion is that these trees are of the poplar family and our guide told us that the trees are grown for paper manufacture, but he didn't know what kind of tree.  

In Ravenna we stopped at yet another basilica, Basilica di Sant' Apollinare.  The church  had some damage during WWII.  The church was founded in 549 and what makes it unique is that it has lots of mosaic decorations.  Some of the earliest examples found in Italy, with a strong byzantine influence. The pictures are a blend of east and west religions.  Of course it is a UNESCO site.

After leaving the plains of Italy, we crossed to the more mountainous region of Tuscany.  After a lot of tunnels and time in the bus, we arrived at Casa Vinicola Triacca on the Santavenere Estate  in Montepulciano.  The vineyards was bought in 1990 and has expanded to more acreage to be able to produce about 140,00 bottles of red wine and 6000 bottles of white wine.  The wine is generally graded DOGC grade which entails complying to a series of rules and has been the barrel for at least 2 years.  We had a tasting of one white and two reds, and I think all were blended wines.   To accompany our tasting we had a plate of meat and cheese.  The cheese was made from sheep milk, with one fresh and the same cheese aged.  There was also local proscutto, and a proscutto made of the meat from the area between the eyes and neck, a salami with fennel and then a regular salami.  I liked the white wine and proscutto best.  Roger like the while wine and the regular salami.  

Notes:  The small wine barrels cost e450 and are only used two years as part of the DOGC rules.  After it is used, it is sold as used for e50, to local farmers or people who aren't in the wine business.  The huge many gallon casks  cost e1000 and can be used up to 5 years.