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This morning we headed out to see several vineyards, but Dr. Lees surprised us by having our bus driver stop at the long-lost Etruscan tomb which we had tried to see earlier but hadn’t been able to because of the rain and not knowing how to get there. He has been trying to see this for 3 years and hasn’t been able to find it. He even called the place and they couldn’t tell him out to get there!
So we started the morning off by looking at more Etruscan tombs. These were very different from the necropolis at Orvieto. All of these tombs were from one family and were built over such a span of time that they never were organized like the Orvieto tombs. These were also not made out of stone blocks, but rather just carved out of the earth. We did some exploring and climbed into several muddy tombs. One of the tombs even had columns along the side and niches in the wall for the urns to sit. The largest, and by far the coolest tomb we’ve seen was inside the museum building and had a handful of rooms off of a central room. It
was even decorated with ornamental sculptures on the ceilings and doorways. It also contained some of the newest and most well preserved urns we’ve seen. It was very need to see what some of the more ornate tombs looked like!
Our first vineyard was the Longetti Vineyard, one of the largest and most famous vineyards in all of Umbria, and Italy. The Vineyard is owned by three ladies, the oldest of which is 85. We got a really awesome tour by Gratzia who we met last Thursday at the wine tasting at Esteban’s. She gave us a fabulous tour where she explained all of the different processes for making their different types of wine. She explained how different types of wine spend different amounts of time in the stainless steel fermenters, then in the big barrels or the little barrels (barreliques) and then time in their bottles. This vineyard won’t but ANY of their red wines on the market until they are at LEAST 5 YEARS OLD! We even saw a room where they were had they had bottles from 1962! Most of their wines are guaranteed to be good for up to thirty years! They even have
to keep the lights off in that room because of how the light will affect the wine.
After the wine tour we headed to a little wine museum that was set up by the vineyard. It was the project of the oldest owner of the vineyard who took it on as a little project. She had a hands-on role and helped design every exhibit. Gratzia said that she goes there every day to sit with the exhibits. I believe we even got to see her while we were there. The museum had everything to do with wine, from the wine and barrel making tools to wine mythology and a whole collection of wine chalices and pitchers!
After the museum, Gratzia made reservations for us to eat at one of the vineyard’s restaurants where we were served one of the most elaborate meals we’ve had! We were served a full 4 course meal with both a red wine AND a white wine from the vineyard. The food was amazing, and it kept coming, and coming, and coming!!!!! We took our time and ate and drank and talked well into the afternoon. The wine was phenomenal and some of the
winery’s best! We even go to sit inside and watch and the sky turned dark and it RAINED! But, we were eating and drinking wine merrily and didn’t care!
After our elaborate lunch we had MORE wine at an official wine tasting of the vineyard. The wine tasting was lead by a wine aficionado named Paula. She even took 3 years of schooling to learn about serving and tasting wine! She really gave us a WONDERFUL crash-course on wine tasting. For instance, when you swirl a red wine, it should create arches along the sides of the glass where the wine drips down. The skinnier the arches, the dryer the wine. And the slower the wine drips the more alcohol in the wine. We also learned about smelling different flavors in the bouquet of the wine. I had an epic FAIL in describing the scent in the white wine. I still think I smelled some herby scent like sage or thyme but I got laughed at when I suggested sage. She said she’d take about anything BUT sage…. Fail. Lol… She also talked about pairing wine and food and how they should equally complement each other.
We
tasted the same kinds of wine that we tasted at lunch but instead of the regular wine we got to taste the “Reserve” of that wine which is produced from the best grapes on one hill in their vineyard and only a small number of bottles are produced. We tasted the reserved White wine from lunch which was quite good. Then we tasted the “Rubesto” Reserve which is what we tasted at lunch also. This is considered the vineyards TOP wine of all. It has won major awards and unlike most of their other wines, it is not available in the United States. Our final wine was the “San Georgio” that we drank at Esteban’s wine tasting last Thursday. The San Georgio is really good too. It is a lot drier than the Rubesto but has such a full-bodied flavor. The Reserved wines had a lot stronger flavor than the non-reserved wines and it was very interesting to tell the difference. I almost preferred the non-reserved Rubesto over the reserved because of its intensity.
After the second wine tasting we headed to ANOTHER vineyard for ANOTHER wine tasting. Luckily for those of us with a low alcohol tolerance we had a small bus ride to the second winery and got to take a little nap. The second winery’s tour was very quick and not nearly as in depth as Longaretti’s tour had been. They talked a lot about how their vineyard is able to stay very sustainable by using their solar panel to charge all of their electric vehicles. Not a single one of their company’s vehicles run on gas or diesel, they all are electric.
We had three red wine to taste at this vineyard. Each got progressively dryer as we went through. I think our whole group was in agreement that none of these wines were better than the wines at the first wine tasting today. Overall these wines just didn’t have as much flavor or depth as the Longaretti’s wine!
I am still so stuffed from lunch’s GIGANTIC meal that I doubt I will feel the need to eat anything for supper. Tomorrow we are headed to a lake and taking a boat out to the Maggoire Island. Pray for the rain to hold and for us to have warm weather! Then we will hopefully have a little time to finish up our shopping here in Perugia, pack and head to one more wine tasting at Esteban’s steakhouse.
Chow for now!
Katelyn
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