Touring Tuscany With Melodie Devlin Joyal
This summer I was lucky enough to spend a few weeks in Tuscany at my good friends villa just outside the ancient walled city of Lucca.
Tuscany is world famous for its wine regions, Renaissance art and delicious food!
First stop on our list was the Chianti region. Chianti is a red blend (mostly Sangiovese) and is possibly the most recognized wine outside of Italy. It is as essential to Italian cuisine as extra virgin olive oil. There are few pleasures as distinct as a tart, spicy, herbaceous Chianti wine next to a plate of sliced prosciutto or pasta al pomodoro.
We drank it as it should be (complete with a straw wrapped bottle) and our travelling companion whipped up a fresh batch of puttanesca pasta with a delicious tomato based sauce.
For desert we had a glass of Chianti Grappa.
Grappa is a clear alcohol distilled from the seeds and skins of wine grapes. It was much stronger than the wine! Definitely an acquired taste. We grew to love it and found the price of the bottle greatly influenced the taste.
Cork it Comparison: 6wk Sangiovese
Next stop on our wine tour was inside the ancient walled city of Lucca, known for its Renaissance architecture, food, wine and exceptional olive oil.
Lucca is located in the north of Tuscany:
We decided to do a wine tasting that featured traditional Tuscan wines from the surrounding vineyards. Our sommelier told us she had grown up in a small vineyard laden town called Montecarlo (not to be confused with the famous French city of the same name)
Tenuta Del Buonamico
Visit their website here: www.buonamico.it/en/
We arrived early for our tasting appointment so we killed time running through the vineyard eating grapes.
Montecarlo is known to be one of the only Tuscan regions to produce large amounts of sparkling white and blush wines.
Source: Cork it Blog