Greve in Chianti Day 4

Gabe cooked us a nice breakfast of bacon, eggs with ricotta and toast with the best crust less bread. We sat outside for awhile enjoying the view. After a nice relaxing morning Gabe and I got dressed for a wine tasting. We are meeting Mike and Nicole Rose, Bill and Annika Bennett and another couple at a vineyard. Mike and Bill are in Gabes EO forum. They have been in Tuscany for the week. We saw them in Florence for an hour or so a few days before. They are staying in a Villa in Cortona. After being here for a few days, we realize that Tuscany is huge. Cortona is 2 hours away from us.. So we picked a vineyard to meet at in the middle We are meeting at the Colle Bereto vineyard. They are a fairly large producer of Chianti Classico for Tuscany. And 80% of their production stays in Italy! Bernardo the winemaker met us outside and started us on a history lesson. He is super passionate about the Chianti region and getting the wine to Texas. Rick Perry has been to the vineyard before and he gets wine shipped to him often. We are also having lunch in their amazing 12th century building. It was the original winery from the 70;s but they have since added other buildings to the property. They were also able to expand the underground facility to have gravity fed grapes during harvest. The owners bought the vineyard in the 70’s for nothing. The owners also own a business in Florence that makes the metal chains used for most all designer handbags. The owner uses the chains in other designs such as placemats, chargers, and candle holders. It’s really cool. Bernardo has been the winemaker for 23 years at Colle Bereto. He has received some very honorable awards he is proud of. In 2020, 3 of their wines made the top 3 spots on the wine spectator list for Chianti Classico. The day before we arrived he found out that another wine just made the list for this year. 95 points! The lunch was simple, homemade and fantastic. Fresh vegetables from their garden. Ravioli and of course wine. We tried 1 sparking, 1 white and 5 reds.
After the tasting we are excited to get back to the house because we are having a pizza dough making class and making our own pizzas in the pizza oven. Chef Nando and his assistant Illyria are the best! They of course made everything look so easy and taste amazing. Our pizzas were so good. We were stuffed!! We even had Nutella pizza. We are so sad to leave in the morning.Read more