Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Suburban Goes to Italy 2009 - Part Three

So we start this wonderful 2 hour plus drive from north of Pisa to Montalcino. Five men (plus luggage) were crammed into an Alpha Romeo station wagon. We were riding low to the ground! Turns out that one of the guys brought his GPS with him, so we fire it up and off we go.

Everything is running very smoothly until we get about 3 miles outside of the town of Montaclino. The actual town is nestled on the top of a hill, literally carved into the mountain. Anyway, after several wrong turns and u-turns, we find our way onto the road that leads us directly into town. It is a dirt road, about the width of the car, with a drainage channel on either sire. By this time it is 8pm and pitch black outside. Oh, by the way, I neglected to mention that the road was well worn in, with two grooves for your tires, and a lovely hump in the middle. Five men + luggage + dirt goat path = sparks flying off the bottom of the car.

I was driving, and let me tell you, everyone is a critic. Trying to avoid the water channels, and avoid bottoming out the car was quite an adventure. At night. In a strange place. Uphill about 2 miles, with no possibility to turn around. Fun stuff. Only a dozen pieces of the car fell off by the time we got to the top, made our way around the narrow streets of Montalcino, and found our hotel.

Checked in, had a quick shower and then downstairs to dinner. Had a lovely dinner where the highlight was a Tuscan pasta dish called “Pinci”. I posted a picture of it below, as it truly was delicious. It’s kind of a thick spaghetti tossed with breadcrumbs, olive oil, garlic and crushed red pepper.




Needless to say we drank some wine as well. The evening’s selections were:

2007 Terre Dorre Fiano
1991 Biondi-Santi Brunello
1993 Soldera Brunello

Just for fun, I have also posted a picture of my room at the hotel. Have been to Europe once or twice, I have become used to the smaller size of rooms there, but this one was the smallest yet. No worries though, as I was only using the room to sleep in! More next time as I will review our visits to Pertimali and Uccelliera. – Lance Cerutti – www.suburbanwines.com











1 comment:

Ben said...

1991 Biondi-Santi Brunello? My jealousy is... bottomless.