Does it rain in paradise? Of course! Grapes and olives need water to grow. We awoke to fog and rain our first morning outside Siena in a refurbished bishop’s palace next to a monastery. Undaunted by the weather, we set out in our little car on SS222, the Chianti Trail. Sloping fields of vines in many straight lines; yellow-brown, very rocky soil; gnarled oaks, wrapped with green ivy, still clinging onto last year’s shiny brown leaves; regiments of cypress trees standing tall and proud. The road twisted through the hills past farms, fields and forest. We arrived in Castellani in Chianti, a little, walled hill-town that had been a Sienese outpost against the Florentines. What better activity at 10:00am on a rainy day is there but to go wine tasting. Eschewing the spittoon, I gulped down
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