Pride pours from the bottle
When it comes to wine, Tuscany knows how to treat tourists.
Consider the Bottega del Nobile restaurant in Montepulciano, which offers as many as 60 wines by the glass, or the ultramodern Cantina di Montalcino winery, where customers can fill jugs with house wine using gas-pump-like hoses.
The Cantina was one of several tasting opportunities we passed the day we walked from Buonconvento to Montalcino. Because one of us is a non-drinker, we hadn’t planned to stop but headed to the famous Caparzo Winery to refill our water bottles in the midday heat.
We lingered in the air conditioning, eavesdropping on a trio from San Francisco as they recorded sampling notes, then tagging along on a brief estate tour.
Back in the winery’s store, it seemed rude not to try a taste, and before I knew it, I had bought a half-case of its award-winning Brunello to be sent home. I later discovered that once I factored in shipping, I could have bought the wine for the same price in the United States.
The purchase out of my system, we found it easy to forgo other wineries as we walked each day past vineyards planted with rows of Sangiovese grapes, though we occasionally stopped to admire the blooming rose bushes that serve as a barometer for the grapes’ health.
We sped through an exhibit (now over) on the history of wine at the Piccolomini Palace museum in Pienza, finding it interesting that wine in the area dates to the Etruscans in the 8th century B.C.
In Montepulciano, a town synonymous with wine, we escaped a downpour by popping into the Contucci cellar. The musty aroma from the aging casks was wonderful and the stacks of barrels impressive, but I sampled the Vino Nobile and didn’t love it.
We popped into one wine store, not for the alcohol but to ogle the high-tech sampling system and gawk at the price tags on some of the wines costing thousands of dollars. We declined a tasting; my husband explained that he no longer drinks.
“I no longer drink either,” the proprietor said earnestly. “No more than two or three glasses a night.”