If you're a red wine fan and you haven't already taken advantage of trying Chianti you are missing out on one of Italy's best wines! To celebrate National Chianti Day (September 4th), I purchased two different bottles of Chianti and made a homemade pasta dish.
To celebrate our 30th birthday a few years ago, we spent a week in Italy before embarking on a 10-day Celebrity Cruise on the Mediterranean. Riding a Vespa in Italy has always been on my bucket list, but driving in Italy has become quite overwhelming! With my travel agent resources, I found Florencetown tours, who offered a Vespa ride in the countryside of Florence for a wine tasting experience. Although it was a small group tour, no one signed up so we had a great private experience! We went to two wineries where we learned about the Chianti process, the difference between the Classico wines, and the importance of a DOCG label.
We were asked at the beginning if we wanted to cancel the tour because there was rain in the forecast. Unfortunately, we only had 24 hours in Florence, so we couldn't let the rain stop us. It's a good thing we didn't, although we got soaked it made for a pretty rainbow in the Chianti countryside!
For safety reasons, we didn't try wine at the first two wineries. After taking a long way back we reached home-base then walked to Diadema Winery at Relais Villa Olmo. We saw some of their processes and tried their wine and wine from the two other wineries we had visited. There I bought some delicious truffle salt! Unfortunately, I found many recipes over the last few years, so I don't have any more left.
When Googling National Chianti Day, I found a free webinar - Chianti Classico Harvest Preview Live from Lamole Di Lamole Campolungo Vineyard with Winemaker Andrea Daldin!
"The SOMM Journal‘s VP of Education, Lars Leicht, will be interviewing Lamole di Lamole winemaker Andrea Daldin from his Campolungo vineyards in Chianti Classico. The webinar will include share-screen features of maps and videos focusing on the Chianti Classico terroir, the Lamole estate, and the 2020 harvest." I found it very interesting and very authentic. It was neat to see him walking through the winery seeing the fresh grapes!
For a while now, I've wanted to make my own Penna Alla Vodka, so I decided to use the Barefoot Contessa's recipe. Then I came up with my own recipe using puff pastry and truffle oil. I still need to perfect the recipe before I share it.
In honor of Italian wine, I decided to wear my apron, a gift from my business friends in Florence, Andiamo in Italy! They help me arrange some great private tours in Italy while I was there. They always do a fantastic job for my clients, too!
For the wine, we tried Cavaliere D'oro's 2016 Chanti Classico and a 2018 Chianti. Both very good and the bottles were under $13.00!
Music of choice was the Italian Dinner Music album found on Amazon Music. It's our go-to playlist when we are eating Italian food. We will finish the evening watching travel shows that showcase the Italian countryside! I couldn't find a lot of recent movies available that had more of an Italian countryside/ vineyard feel. I did find this article of the 10 films set in Tuscany, which is close. I will be keeping Winefolly's 23 Wine Movies You Don't Want to Miss on my radar! Bottle Shock is definitely now on my movie list to watch!
I know, my blog probably comes out a day too late. But that doesn't mean you can't celebrate Chianti on a different day! If you don't want to try cooking Italian, try your local Italian restaurant. I have a feeling they will have some Chianti on their menu!
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