Italy

OK, so we went to Italy on a Perillo Tour that included Rome, Sorrento, Florence, Venice, and Milan – as well as a visit to a winery in Tuscany.  Most of our dinners were provided as part of the tour, and, unfortunately, ranged from bad to so-so, with generally low quality wine.  The few times we handled the meals ourselves the food was great and the wine outstanding.  Lesson learned.
So, the question than arises as to how do the wines produced in Southern California compare to those produced in Italy?  Well, surprising well.  Now I say that with the understanding that we only visited one winery in Tuscany – Torciano, a very large operation (over 5,000 acres) specializing in wines made from Sangiovese grapes (pictures at the end).  Tasting was limited to Chianti, Chianti Classico, Brunello, and three Super Tuscan blends.  Outside of the winery, I had some Montepulciano, Aglianico, Merlot, Valpocella, and, surprisingly, Lagrein.  The Merlot and Aglianico were served at the Perillo-provided dinners, and were pretty mediocre, but the rest were all very good, pretty similar to wines produced in Southern California.  Again, the sample size was very small, so don’t go running around telling everyone that in our part of the world we make wine as good as any in Italy!
Anyway, after a short presentation by the owner of Torciano in front of the vines (see picture below), we were taken to the tasting area.  The tasting itself was different, designed for a large group and included food for pairing (see picture below) followed by bread soup and lasagna (both absolutely incredible).  We were taught how to taste the wine properly, or at least how to swirl the wine in the glass and in our mouths.  In other words, the presentation was geared toward Americans tourists.  But the wine was very good (except for the white and red we started with).  We tasted a total of nine wines, all pretty generous pours.

---

I should point out that the tasting was held outside with ambient temperature around 85 F.  The woman (owner’s niece) teaching us how to taste wine became quite defensive when I raised the wine temperature issue, insisting that their red wines should be served at room temperature.  At the end of the tasting I noticed on one of their bottles they listed the optimum drinking temperature for the wine at 65 F….
You can see the price list for the wines below.  Note that the prices are in Euros.  Add ~20% to get the dollar amount and you can see that the prices are pretty high.  Of course, there is the usual tour “discount”.  In this case it is 30% with free shipping – not bad.  One of our group looked them up on line, and sure enough you get the same prices with free shipping if you buy on line.  So much for the great Perillo tour “discount”.​

Strangely enough, the most expensive Brunello was not as good as the least expensive.  I thought this phenomenon was limited to Southern California.  I managed to limit my wife’s wine purchases to four bottles, so overall it was a successful visit.
A couple of tidbits:  we learned that the difference in Chianti vs. Chianti Classico is the grape clone, and that true Chianti Classico wine has a rooster on the label.  See below.  I also learned that there is Vino Nobile di Montipulciano and Montipulciano D’Abruzzo.  The former is a Sangiovese mix, the latter made from the Montipulciano grape.  Of course, I did not make this discovery until after I had purchased a bottle of Torciano’s Vino Nobile di Montipulciano.

Please enjoy the pictures I took of the Torciano Winery.  Oh, as noted above, you can buy their wines on line at the discount price with free shipping, but what fun is that?