2023 Italy Day 13
Trequanda, Sunday, Apr 2
We are in leisure mode now so we wake up when we wake up. Our villa is freezing cold and the heater appears not to be working. So we brave the elements and get our day going. Elee makes breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs! First egg breakfast in Italy! And the coffee we bought in a grocery store last night turns out to be really good cooked in a percolator in the kitchen! Throw a banana in and breakfast is complete!
We eventually get dressed and take a walk around the resort, our cameras busily grabbing photos of the local flowers and plants and they purr happily! Elee whips up some open face sandwiches out of ingredients we bought yesterday and all is good!
We head out and find some wine tasting places. First is “Cantina Contucci” in Montepulciano. Back in the old part of the city that was originally built in the 4th or 3rd century BC (yes, I said BC!), the buildings are medieval and fantastic according to our camera lenses! But don’t believe them, look at the photos for yourself! Okay, so my cameras were right! And you didn’t believe them! Shame on you, LOL
We walk into Cantina Contucci and it is busy. The sommelier sees we have just arrived and steps off to the side and invites us to visit the wine cellar and points the way! We walk into the cellar and my camera snaps at me for not letting it loose! This is fantastic! We first see bottles covered in 1/4 to 1/2 inch of accumulated dust! Wine barrels that are 10 feet tall by 10 feet wide and stacked to fill every crevice of the caves! Literally hundreds of barrels that must each hold 2000 gallons each! And it appears they must have been built in place for there’s no way they would fit through the passageways! And they are all in current use!
By the time our camera lenses are satiated, we arrive back in the tasting room. The people that were here have gone and we are two of only a half dozen people left. So she focuses on us and another sommelier takes on the rest of the patrons. We taste four of their finest wines and I am underwhelmed. Their prices range from 15 Euros to 50 Euros per bottle. Understand that 1 Euro is approximately $1.20. Won’t be buying from any wineries soon, but we’ll keep tasting!
So we move on and find a couple of wine rooms that are closed. We finally find one that we call and it is open and we locate it in an industrial part of town, “Vecchia Cantina”. Gabriel is the sommelier and he treats us to tastings of 4 of his best wines. At least one of them I would love to take home and lay down in my wine room, but this trip we are traveling light with just carry on bags and we won’t be able to take any on the plane. The one that shows promise is still young and the wines we are buying we will drink here. So it defeats the purpose of trying to bring his wine home! Sorry Gabriel, we wish you well!
A storm has taken over the skies for an hour or two and we find a store with a couple more sundries we need while the storm passes. We go back to our Villa where Elee cooks some egg noodles we have bought in the grocery store. She does another fabulous job on dinner and we settle down to eat and enjoy the fire I have lit in the fireplace!
We stopped into a small store that I described yesterday where a local lady translated for us. Both she and the proprietor talked me out of purchasing some expensive wines and I picked up a couple at 15 Euros. I’m drinking one of them right now and it is quite nice!
Well, in closing, since Elee cooked, it is my job to clean the kitchen, so Ciao for now!
Around the World in 80 Trips (Or Less) 
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