The importance of tasting different wines in different regions of the world aids in becoming more knowledgeable in developing one's taste and helps broaden the palette. This year we decided to explore some of the wines of central Italy. We started in the Amalfi coast south of Napoli and then moved to Tuscany before ending in the north at Cinque Terre.

After visiting the typical sites of Roma that everyone visits, we drove south about two hours past Napoli and over the mountains to the Amalfi coast. This area is one of the most popular coastal areas in Italy and is known for its very narrow roads on cliffs high above the Mediterranean sea and its lemons from which the famous limoncello is made. We were headed to the little town of Ravello where we planned to stay a few days.

As we came around a corner on the narrow road we saw the pressings from red wine and some wine tanks and realized we had just discovered our first winery. The area is so steep that part of the winery sticks out into the road. The surrounding hills are covered with terraces most of which are populated with the famous Amalfi lemon and a few terraces are covered with wine grapes. It was difficult finding a place to park since the road was so narrow but eventually we succeeded and visited the Gran Caruso winery. We tasted several reds before buying a bottle of 2022 Ravello Rosso. It is made from a dark red local grape, Piedirosso and Aglianico. The Piedirosso is only grown on the Amalfi and the Aglianico is grown more widely in Campania. The wines tasted unusual- they are quite different from the more common Cabernet, Syrah and Merlot that so many wineries in the USA make. It was amazing to sip wine by the side of the road with the sea a thousand feet below lapping at the cliffs. We hoped to visit more wineries but most of them were on the other side of the mountains toward Napoli and we never found any more along the coast.

We visited the famous Villa Cimbrone and marveled at the architecture, gardens and the amazing view from the Terrace of Infinity. We also had breakfasts and dinners on our own little terrace at the little B&B we stayed in.

We then drove back north past Sorento, Pompei and Rome to the village of Montepulciano in Tuscany where we stayed for a few days. We rented an apartment in town and headed to the local grocery store and purchased food for dinner. I found a bottle of 2018 Vecchi Cantina Nobile di Montepulciano for 9.5 Euros and took a chance. It ended up being the nicest wine we tasted. It is 80% Sangiovese with the rest made up of Canaialo which is a local grape. It was medium to full bodied with nice fruit. It was so good we went back the next day and bought two more bottles. It is aged for 20 months in small oak barrels then aged 11 months in the bottle before being released. It is made at a very large wine coop just outside of Montepulciano that has 400 members. This wine is actually available in the USA for about $20. Get it if you can.

A word about Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Most of the wines in Chianti and the surrounding area are made from Sangiovese. It is tough to make a really great wine out of 100% Sangiovese but Brunello di Montalcino is an exception. A number of years ago some enterprising vintners started blending it with other grapes such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot. Cabernet Franc and Syrah to create a more full bodied wine. The resulting wines sold better and the Nobiledesignation was applied. These wines are part of the “Super Tuscans” which includes other areas in Tuscany that blend other grapes with Sangiovese. The resulting blend is more full bodied than regular sangiovese and generally have a lot more complexity and depth than traditional Chianti.

The next day we took a drive toward Montalcino. The Tuscan countryside was beautiful and there were a lot of newly worked up fallow fields. Wheat was raised in these fields and we learned that Tuscany actually raises more wheat than grapes. We drove on very narrow uncrowed country roads and enjoyed the rural countryside. We arrived in Montalcino and found a winery with a sign that said “wine tasting direct sales” in Italian and English. Most wineries in Tuscany want you to make a reservation several days in advance and the tasting includes a tour and snacks and also a hefty price tag. We like to be more spontaneous and stop when we want. The wineries that offer direct sales allow walk-ins to taste and buy without all the formality of a tour and food.

Just outside of Montalcino we stopped at Patrizia Cencioni and tasted their wonderful reds. Brunello di Montalcino is considered to be one of the best wine districts in Italy and commands a hefty price. They are twice to three times the cost of a Nobile di Montepulciano. The winery is run by Patrizia and her two daughters. We tasted the reds and opted for a bottle of their 2021 “Solarianne” which is a blend of 50% Sangiovese and 50% Cabernet Sauvignon for 26 Euros. The Brunello di Montalcino was really good but I could not justify the 42 Euros or the 82 Euros for a bottle of the reserve.

About midway between Montalcino and Montepulciano in the heart of the Orcia valley is Palazzo Massaini. It has 13 hectares of vines, 15 hectares of olive trees and hosts farm stays and is an event center. This was the most picturesque winery we visited.

The long driveway lined with Italian cypress leads to many stone buildings dating from 1215. We wandered around the beatiful medieval buildings and found the tasting room where we tasted three reds.

We bought their 2020 Chianti Reserva that was fermented in concrete tanks and aged for two years in French oak and then bottle aged from 6 months before being released. It is 100% Sangiovese. It was hard to tear ourselves away from this incredible place.

Near Montepulciano is Casa Vinicola Triacca and the vineyard Santavenere. The winery in northern Italy was started in 1897 and has been in the family for 4 generations. The Triacca family expanded and eventually added vineyards in Chianti and Montepulciano.

The tasting room hosted wines from Chianti and Montepulciano and we were able to taste four big reds. It was a hard choice but we settled on a 2019 Poderuccio Vino Nobile di Montepulciano which is 100% Sangiovese. This wine won a gold medal at the AWC Vienna and 94 points from The Wine Critic. They focus on sales to Switzerland and other European countries and locally. It was also heart warming that this winery has been a successful family business for over 125 years.

A friend who helps us bottle our wine gave us a voucher for a free nights stay at a winery hotel in Tuscany. This was too good to pass up so we set up a two nights stay and included a structured wine tasting at Tenuta Torciano in the village of Ulignano near San Gimignano. The small hotel had eight really nice rooms that looked out over the vineyards. The winery was set to host a lot of wine tasters. We found out later that they serve up to 200,000 tasters in a year. The family has been in the wine business for 13 generations- about 300 years. In the last ten years or so they have devoted their 120 employees to increasing direct sales to the USA and are now also focusing on Singapore and South Korea. They have a warehouse in the USA where they ship their wine direct to customers. It has proved to be a successful business model. Our host asked if I had a bottle of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir after I had mentioned we owned a small winery. I had one in the car. He had visited the Willamette Valley many times and organized tasting of Tenuta Torciano wines for direct sales in Oregon! Small world. They make a wide variety of wines but specialize in “Super Tuscans”. We tasted a variety of wines but I thought at the time that I could not taste much flavor. Little did I realize that Cindy and I were coming down with colds. I could not get much flavor from the reds but my developing cold seemed to not diminish the flavor of the whites. I bought a bottle of their “Goldwine” which was made from the ancient Vernaccia varietal believed to be around since the time of the Greeks and Romans and documented as Vernaccia di San Gimignano as early as 1276. It had citrus and tropical fruit flavors and nice acidity.

This cold presented problems with wine tasting. We stopped at Teruzzi winery on the outskirts of San Gimignano. The modest winery was started in 1974 by Enrico Teruzzi and then in 2016 Terra Moretti purchased the winery. We tasted a nice Vernaccia and several reds and we got a bottle of “Peperino” which was 60% Sangiovese and 40% Merlot. But we were having a hard time evaluating the wines due to our colds. We felt bad and realized we could not continue our wine exploration. We decided to drive two or three hours to Cinque Terre on the coast, get a nice place to stay and try to recover.

We were disappointed that we were not able to explore more wines. Cinque terre had many terraced vineyards that started at sea level and went up several thousand feet up the slopes. Some were so steep that one could fall off the vineyard and die. Some vineyards have the designation of being a heroic vineyard. We found that any vineyard with a slope of 30% or more was called a heroic vineyard because of the difficulty in farming on such steep slopes.

We noticed an unusual contraption by the side of the road next to some vineyards that looked a bit like a very small train attached to a pipe. After some conversation with locals we found that it was a modest monorail with cogs that allowed it to travel up very steep slopes. One person steered behind the motor and little cars or bins filled with grapes followed along behind. It seemed very risky on the steep slopes but was commonplace.

On our last day in Cinque Terre we stopped at a wine coop near Riomaggiore and tried their wine. We could not taste much but found out that the coop, Cantina Cinque Terre Societa Agricola Cooperativa Riomaggiore, had over 200 vineyard contributors with a total vineyard area of 46 hectares. The tasting host said they did not grow red grapes so we tried three Veraccias and settled on a 2023 “Costa da Posa” to take home, realizing that we may be surprised because of our altered olfactory sensors. We were able to taste Sciacchetra. This is a late harvest dessert wine made only from grapes growing on the lowest terraces next to the Mediterranean sea. The very ripe grapes are placed in sheds on racks to allow the grapes to dryout and lose water. After a month or more, the grapes are pressed and the juice fermented. It is aged for several years before selling and can age 30 or more years. The taste was phenomenal. Clearly it was the best wine we tasted in spite of our colds. It tasted a bit like hazelnuts and was almost as sweet as honey. We have never tasted a wine like this. It did resemble a trockenbeerenauslese in style but with a completely different flavor profile. The cost? 80 Euros for a half bottle!

So our wine adventure ended on a high note in spite of our colds. The wines are safely home in our cellar and it will be an adventure tasting them, this time without a cold.