WanderLustin' - Travel Log

So, we’ve been eating a lot in Italy – and not just the 32 34 pizzas Dustin wrote about in our last entry. Whether it’s homemade tagliatelle with a wild boar ragu… or a huge terra cotta crock containing every species of edible fish and crustacean just pulled from the sea that day… or fresh, homemade ravioli coated in butter and sage that literally melt in your mouth… or Dustin’s daily (and sometimes twice-daily) order of un gelato con cioccolato e bacio… or any of the other gustatory delights we’ve been lucky enough to sample in this country of food lovers, we have definitely made eating (and drinking) a primary focus of our time here on the boot. (If you don’t believe us, we have several pairs of pants that no longer fit that we’d be happy to show you. :)

Nowhere has our desire to EAT been put to the test more than in an incredible meal we had on our last night in Tuscany a few weeks ago with my family. Those of you who have seen the film “Big Night” will know what I mean when I say that this was our Big Night meal (and those of you who haven’t seen this movie definitely should!). What started as a simple gathering of a few groups of Americans for a winery tour and “meal of local Tuscan specialities” somehow morphed into an 8-course, 4-hour exercise in gluttony and gastronomic nirvana that had all of us swearing by the end of the evening that we’d never eat again. Top that off with a rousing a cappella rendition of “O Solo Mio” (in a German accent, no less), and a toast from two of my dad’s brothers announcing that they’d conferred and decided that Dustin is “officially a keeper,” and you’ve got yourself one big night indeed.

The whole crew at lunch in FlorenceBut I’m getting ahead of myself. First, a little background. As luck would have it, two of my dad’s brothers, Richard and Michael, and two of their sons (my cousins), Ricky and Chris, arrived in Tuscany a few days after we did in early September. They were in Italy for what has become an annual pilgrimage for my Uncle Richard – the Greve Wine Festival in the heart of Chianti country. My family (Dustin, Mom, Dad, Terese, and Uncle Buzz) had planned to meet up with the Maestrelli boys in the little town of Greve-in-Chianti and then catch the bus into Florence with them to spend the day sightseeing at the Uffizi and the Accademia with what felt like every other tourist in Italy. We had only planned to spend that day with the Maestrelli boys, but Uncle Richard put a little bug in our ears that we needed to come back to Chianti the next day for a tour and dinner at the local Verrazzano winery outside of Greve. Although we weren’t super excited about the prospect of having to make the incredibly twisty drive back and forth to Greve again (which included several sections of dirt road), Uncle Richard assured us this was a meal not to be missed.

We decided to trust the man and, on our last afternoon in Tuscany, we piled into our cars and began the 1.5 hour drive back to Greve. We arrived at the hilltop castle once owned by the man who designed the Verrazano-Narrows bridge just as the sun was slipping down on the horizon, and in the early autumn twilight those famous Chianti grapes in the fields surrounding us seemed to be aglow. We met Uncle Richard’s friend Gino, the current Verrazzano winery manager and our host for the evening, and the other 15 or so folks who’d be joining us, and began the tour.

Twilight view from the Castello di VerrazzanoAs we wandered around the tomb-like cellars, Gino talked to us about the history of the estate and the Verrazzano approach to making wine. He could barely contain his infectious passion and enthusiasm for the land on which we stood, and the unique food and wine it had been producing for centuries. He told us that the meal we’d be eating later that night would be made entirely of ingredients that had been grown or hunted within a few miles of where we were standing. He cautioned us to eat each course slowly… to savor the tastes and flavors of each bite and try to find in them hints of the Tuscan sunshine, water, and soil that had conspired to produce them. He was like an Italian Michael Pollan, only with better shoes.

In the course of the tour, it also became pretty apparent that Gino had no patience for wine snobs. A classic example of this was when he asked the group, “How do you think we know when to take the wine out of the barrels?”, to which an over-eager tour attendee who looked like he’d been waiting all evening for a chance to show off his snooty wine knowledge shouted out something about “spectrophotometric analysis.” Upon hearing this, Gino sighed the disappointed sigh of a teacher who isn’t getting through to his clueless students, and said, “No, actually we take the wine out of the barrels when we have a new batch to put in.” When it comes to making wine the Verrazzano way, it’s all about simple, timeworn techniques and trusting the instincts of the winemaker.

Gino teaching us a thing or two

Primed as we were for the meal to come, we headed to the dining room and took our seats at the long table reserved for our family (where Gino and his American-born wife would join us). After getting a delightfully irreverent tutorial from Gino about how to taste wine (“Be sure to put one hip slightly forward and maintain an expression of utter disinterest as you swirl the wine in your glass”), the meal was officially underway. I managed to take pictures of almost every course, which you’ll see below. (If you can believe it, there was an additional pasta course that’s not included in the pics below because I forget to snap a photo of it.) We’ve also included more pictures from the dinner as well as other adventures in Tuscany in our Chianti and Florence & Tuscany albums.

And so, with no further ado, I give you our Big Night…

First, the wine: Castello di Verrazzano Chianti Classico Riserva (DOCG)