Castellinuzza

Culture Lesson: Remember we mentioned the 20 regions of Italy. Well within the regions are more regions. They like that word, Regions. Chianti is a wine varietal that we know well. Chianti is a region in the Tuscany region. Within the Chianti region there are 11 towns that are the ONLY towns that can produce Chianti Classico wine. If you are drinking a wine and the label says Chianti its not FROM one of those 11 towns. So that wine would just be made in the Chianti style of wine making. Remember the Consortium word ? Yep, they control that also. It’s not a bad thing. It’s a little exclusive and they are trying to again help those towns out.
The vineyard and cheese farm we visited today is not in one of those 11 towns. They are 1 mile from the border of those 11 towns (across the highway). They may be a little bitter about it. This new “policy” was put into law just last year.
This vineyard is owned by a Swiss family who still live on the property and they all work for the vineyard in some way. The owner was an architect in Florence and decided he wanted to move to the country. So he bought this place and taught himself the winemaking process.
They also have 600 Sardinian sheep. They produce their own cheese on site as well. Almost every vineyard also has an olive tree orchard. Which allows them to also produce their own olive oil. Farming will never not be a thing in Italy. 90% of the wine this vineyard makes in sold to the US.
We tasted 4 wines and 5 cheeses. I didn’t really love pecorino cheese. But I had a feeling its just the kind we get at Tom Thumb. Pecorino is a sheep’s milk cheese. I tasted several today that were really good. Their ricotta was the best thing we had tho. We bought some to use in a pasta dish.
Then we wanted to go a visit this butcher from Chefs Table. Gabe wanted to get some food for dinner tonight. We stopped for a snack on the side of the road at a food truck. This famous butcher owns the food truck so we got to sample some of their meats. At the meat shop, the butcher was there but all his meat was cryo sealed and he charged to take a photo. So we left. We went to another meat shop in our town of Greve. We had to wait 30 minutes for them to come back from lunch. Have I mentioned at most places close from 12:30-2:30pm or longer for a mid day break ?
The kids really wanted to make ragu in the style of Bologna. We had to ask the butcher to grind the meat in that way. It’s a tri blend. We also got a whole chicken to roast. We will get the veggies at the store. Dinner was so good and it was nice to take our time. We are going to work on Legos and watch the sunset.
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