Wine Archives - Dave and Sara’s Excellent 2018 Adventure

Quiet Day

By Dave and Sara on Thursday, March 29, 2018

This morning we woke up a bit earlier than usual to hit the gym. After running for a half hour we headed up for breakfast before hitting the town.

We set out on a walk with no particular destination in mind. We started by crossing the Academia bridge and journeyed around until we crossed the Rialto. The Academia bridge is currently being restored. Our trip took us through the neighborhoods of Dosoduro and Santa Croce.

After walking for about three to four hours we stumbled in to a wine bar, Vino Vero, we found on our last trip. It was one of the highlights of our last trip so we were excited to find it again. They have tons of bruschettas. They also advertise that they don’t have spritz because they love wine. Their selection is quite good both by the glass and bottle which they sell to take away as well. It’s along the Fondamenta Misericordia in Canneregio.

After we finished at Vino Vero we started to make our way leisurely back towards the hotel. We stopped at another bar on the way for more snacks. It’s like tapas in Barcelona where you can eat a little bite and then move on and eat a little more. All delicious bites on toast and a reason to stop for a little while on the walk. In the second bar we met a law student from Israel who lives in Bologna but comes to Venice to buy his supplies for Passover. The ghetto in Venice is still one of the largest Jewish communities in Italy. Nice guy, bought us each a little shooter of wine they drink here called an ‘Ombra.’ (Note: top photo is from google just to show what the ‘Ombra’ looks like)

Our day of laying low had us walking over 20,000 steps. We enjoyed many bars and was able to escape most of the rain. Also tonight we are expecting 1.2 meters of Aqua Alta around 11:30PM so the walkways are up. As we passed through San Marco the water was already bubbling up through the storm grates across the piazza. Gladly we will be back safely at our hotel before the alarm rings. (Anything over 110cm of high tide the alarm rings all over Venice to let people know it’s coming so they can get to where they need to be.) The walkways cover heavily trafficked routes in the the areas that are most prone to flooding.

Tomorrow is our last full day of the Sabbatical and we are understandably sad to see it end. Tomorrow we will try to get emotional and “shmoopy” about the trip unless we get too busy. If that happens you all will have to wait.

Italy Road Trip

Real italy

By Dave and Sara on Wednesday, March 21, 2018

It is surprising to me that it took nearly a month and a half to feel something real but it is true. Today we started out our day with a wine tasting at Passeti. When we arrived we felt like we made a mistake because the lobby was basically a gas station for wine. Note: that is our type of gas station.

It turns out that we were in the right place. Laura, the owner, met us and took us around the winery. While it is tucked in the middle of a super industrial area, the winery is typical of what you would expect. Lots of tanks and wine production equipment. After touring the winery, that is when everything changed. Laura was welcoming us to her home. She had prepared many home cooked items for us to enjoy with our tasting. We unfortunately had just eaten breakfast but we had to suck it down.

It was easy though because everything was so delicious including the wine. At some point her daughter also joined us. This wine tasting ended up taking about 4.5 hours and includes tasting four wines and finishing the bottle of Montepulciano d’abruzzo. Honestly with a wine tasting at 10:30 we were worried about what to do between our appointments with our next one at 15:30. Turns out we would barely have enough time to make our next one because we spent so much time with Laura.

Our next appointment was not nearly as homey but still quite fun. We headed to San Lorenzo which is more up in the hills. They again had a gas station of wine. We tasted about five wines here. While the Montepulciano is what is famous, they also do a nice job on whites and rose. Again here we were hosted by Gianluca, the winery owner, and one of his associates that manages their wholesaling. The tasting including sitting by the fireplace with them watching the rain and chatting about everything from overly tanned politicians to the industrial agricultural complex. Oh, also Gianluca also gave us a ride up to his family’s castle in the hilltop village above the winery where the Montepulciano is stored for aging for a visit in the middle of the tasting.

After finishing up our tasting around 19:00, we started the drive back towards the hotel and to our dinner at Villa Maiella, a Michelin started restaurant. The food was delicious.

We have seriously loved our time in Abruzzo, an area that is usually left off the typical tourist itinerary. Unfortunately last year’s appolyptic earthquake/avalanche in the Rocorasso ski resort of Abruzzo has severely impacted what small amount of tourism they do have. So this is our little plug for Abruzzo, come here it’s awesome!

Our next stop is a slight change of plans. With the weather turning a bit worse, we decided to spend a few more days in the city. Therefore, we are headed to Bologna.

Italy Road Trip

Castles to Terraces

By Dave and Sara on Friday, March 9, 2018

So dinner last night was only OK. It was nice to eat just protein and not a pasta. That being said, Dave woke up in the middle of the night with stomach pains. Maybe the seafood wasn’t good? Luckily, it just cost him a little bit of sleep. When he woke up, the stomach pain was gone.

‘This morning, we hiked up to the Castle Rocca Minore. It is about a 10 minute walk from where we are staying mostly uphill. The castle looks over the entire town of Assisi and has some good views.

From the top we can still see some snow on the top of the hills from the freak snow storm that hit last week. After catching some views, we hiked back down to the town.

Today the sun is actually out and it is nearly 60 degrees. From the wet cold days of before, this basically feels like summer. We grabbed a bottle of wine and some to go focaccia and took it back to our place to sit out on the terrace. We spent the rest of the day up here enjoying the sun.

Tonight we go to dinner at Osteria Piazzetta dell’Erba. Tomorrow we have our longest drive yet to Rome at 3 hours where we will be meeting up with Matt and Anna. We are quite excited!

Italy Road Trip

I Guess We Are Shipping Wine

By Dave and Sara on Tuesday, March 6, 2018

After struggling to find something to eat for lunch yesterday and enjoying our home aperitivo, we headed on the town to find something to eat for dinner. We ended up at Ristorante La Bricola next door to where we ate dinner the first night. To be honest, we were a bit underwhelmed by the food. Additionally, the bottle of wine we got was border line turned, but we waited too long before we both agreed it wasn’t good.

This morning we woke up and saw that a glimmer of hope that the rain would finally subside. Unfortunately, we were wrong.

Luckily for us, we had a fun day planned of wine tasting and eating Italian food so it didn’t matter what the weather was like. Our first stop was Montemecurio just outside of town. When we pulled up, a scruffy teenager with an eye patch wearing sweat pants answered the door and looked at us very confused. Concerned we had pulled up to somebody’s house and not a winery, we started to slowly backup. In broken English, the teenager told us to wait. After waiting outside the front door for two minutes, Irene came out and welcomed us into the house. While it looked like a house, it was indeed the correct place. The wine operation consists of 3 people. One for the field, one for the winery, and one for the office. Irene was an absolute pleasure to taste with. She was quite gregarious and loved talking with us about skiing. She stressed the importance of a bit of grappa before you hit the slopes. Here we tasted 6 bottles of wine include a white and rose which is very rare in this red dominated region. Everything was delicious and so affordable. We ended up walking away with a half case.

After our first tasting, we headed to our lunch reservation in Monticchiello at Osteria La Porta.

Apparently, most people come to this little hill top village just for this restaraunt. We were not disappointed. Between the bacalla appetizier or the Cacio Pepe Gnocchi, everything was so good. The atmosphere was also quite fun with a young temptress sitting behind us attempting to seduce the young waiter. This included passing notes and lots of giggling. Sara said she could have dressed cuter. The staff was also quite generous here, they even gave us our half liter of wine for free.

After lunch, we headed back to the apartment for a quick rest before our next tasting. Dave fell asleep during this time for a few minutes, because as you know, tasting wine is exhausting. Refreshed and ready to go, we headed up to Gattevechi which is located right in town.

We met Daniela who is the one of three siblings who run the winery. In addition to working in the family business, Daniela used to teach Italian to foreign students at a school in Montepulciano so she was very excited about speaking with Sara and complimented her quite a bit on her Italian. They also spoke about their shared interest in vintage Cinecitta films. Similar to other places in town, they had an extensive cellar that dates back to 300 BC.

After touring their small crypt, we tasted the wines. Again, everything was quite good. Daniella offered to help us ship all of our wine back including the bottles we purchased at other locations.

All in all, we ended up with two cases.

During our tasting, it finally stopped raining and the sun came out. We now sit in our apartment for one last night and are looking at a beautiful sunset. Tonight we are going to cook in.

Tomorrow we head to Assisi.

Italy Road Trip

Arting with Dave

By Dave and Sara on Friday, March 2, 2018

One thing that’s really awesome about traveling in the low season is the no lines part. Today we woke up and decided to check out the Uffizi galleries. The guidebooks all warn about insane lines and advise to book ahead. There weren’t any available reservations for today but we decided to give it a try anyway. It was raining pretty hard this morning so a perfect day to spend arting it up with Dave.

Everything is within walking distance of our hotel which is awesome. After breakfast we walked along the Arno which looks a little rough due to the recent storms to the galleries. No lines. We just walked right in. (Art-tastic high fives all around!)

Thanks to a great recommendation from a Christine we downloaded the Rick Steve’s free podcast to guide our visit. It always is so overwhelming when you go to famous museums like this and see masterpieces you can as about in books right in front of you (I.e. Venus on the half shell). It’s also an extra special experience going with Dave who likes to make up his own stories and histories of the various works, so special that it may need its own podcast someday called Arting with Dave.

After the Uffizi we went to the Duomo where there was a line. The line gave us a chance to admire the exterior of the Duomo, the campanile and the Baptistry which really are quite stunning. Then we went inside and I instantly remembered from the last time I was here when I was in middle school I think 1) how giant it is and 2) how drab it is compared to some of gilded palaces you see in Christiandom.

After the Duomo we headed back to the hotel on the non-touristy side of the Arno. We ate at Trattoria Cent’ori. Our surely waiter slammed down the menu which was a prix fix consisting of a primi and secondi for 10€. Thinking we ordered too much food, Dave got a pasta and Sara got soup followed by salt cod. It was all so good and we did not feel stuffed afterwards.

We rested this afternoon and in the early evening went back up in search of a haircut and beard trim for Dave. They were fully booked so we decided to meander towards cocktail hour which is where we write this post currently to you all, gentle readers.

Also, last night we walked around a bit on a super fancy shopping street before dinner then stopped in a dive bar full of expats called Green Street Bar. So full of expats that they take USD to Euro at a 1:1 exchange rate. One of the girls there let us cuddle her very adorable golden retriever/ dachshund mix named Sonny who was quite friendly and happy to oblige our current puppy snuggle deficiency. We had dinner at a seafood restaurant we found on Eater called Vivo. The food was ok but the restaurant looked like a mall food court. So yea…we’ll be moving away from Eater recos for the rest of the trip and relying on our tried and true method of finding good restaurants in Italy. If there are tradesmen there, it’s good. If there are dogs in the restaurant, also good.

Tomorrow morning we have an appointment for Dave to meet the David. A dopo!

Tag Archives: Wine

Quiet Day

Real italy

Castles to Terraces

I Guess We Are Shipping Wine

Arting with Dave