Remembering Renzo

Renzo Marinai is a veterinarian by education and training, but is now a wine maker. We visited his beautiful grounds in Tuscany's Conca d'Oro (Golden Shell), where he and his dog led us on a tour and tasting.

What's cool about Renzo's small operation is his "back to basics" approach. (Instead of creating separate grape and olive fields) He plants olive trees among the vineyards -- and wheat, too. He believes living together helps their immune systems as well as the soil. Of course, in addition to the wine from grapes, he makes oil from the olives, and pasta -- and perfume -- from the wheat.

I bought a bottle of the perfume, Vita, for myself. It smells heavenly: clean, fresh, Tuscan. It was a bit of a risk, considering I haven't worn perfume for years now on account of allergies.  But the risk paid off: no rashes.  So I get to be reminded a bit of Italy now and again.

But you really want to know about the wine, right?  Panzano, where Renzo lives, is in Tuscany.  Which means the wine is Chianti.  As most wine makers do, he ferments in stainless steel and ages in oak.  But his wine ages to the sound of Mozart.  According to Renzo, the candence of the composition is reverberated by the wood, enhancing the aging process.  I especially liked the Chianti Classico Riserva. And he also poured some of his Kadar for us to try -- a special treat because there are only 290 bottles of the stuff!

   

This was one of the more memorable winery tours.  It's one of the smaller wineries in the region, but is very unique in terms of philosophy and product line.  And the tour was by the proprieter himself -- who, for someone of my parents' generation, is a pretty spiffy dresser!

It's been over two months since the trip, and although I have tons of photos and can probably write an individual post on each of the vineyards we visited, I'll abbreviate the process by sharing a list of the others we visited:

• Villa Le Corti


• Fontodi


• Castello Romitorio


• Castello Banfi


• Plus, Frantoio Fraci for olive oil tasting

One last and special post to go, and I can say, "Ciao, Italia!" for now.

 

Graduation weekend

Since we had such a good time wine tasting over Memorial Day weekend, and I knew we'd be nearby again for my brother's graduation, I suggested to my family to head up a day early and relax before going to the Saturday ceremony.  Everyone agreed, and a family road trip was born.

We only went to two wineries, but that's cool.

[melville vineyards]

We got to spend time doing other things, like walking around Solvang (where we stayed) and watching the US vs. UK match.

[team usa]

The weather was gorgeous at graduation.  We spread a blanket on the lawn and relaxed.  And then were lucky enough to catch our grad at both processional and recessional.

[congrats]

We ended the night with a lovely dinner at Tupelo Junction on State Street (I hear the Bloody Marys are good, but I can only vouch for the blackberry mint mojito) before the long ride home.

[cheers!]

I was beat after just two days: traveling with family is always adventuresome, always yielding funny stories and good memories.  Thanks for giving us a reason to do the road trip, brother -- and congratulations!  Time to go job hunting...

Summer Picnic Club preview

Summer picnicking got started a bit early thanks to a lovely weekend spent wine tasting in the Santa Ynez Valley.  We had a glorious spread of bread, cheese, salami, turkey, carrots, cherries, watermelon, and a refreshing Sauvignon Blanc.  The weather was perfect.

[picnic]

The Santa Ynez Valley is such an easy and feasible getaway, especially with very action-oriented friends (we casually talked about the possibility of going just a few weeks ago).  And probably on account of the film.  We got seated at "the Sideways table" at the Hitching Post.

[towards the wine tasting]

Later, we even made a stop in Solvang and went to Sunday Service at Mission Santa Ines.  Hope you had a good Memorial Day weekend; we sure did!