Mercoledi, 9 maggio - una giornata magica!

Today turned out to be a great day for a few reasons…We left the hotel around 9:30 and headed straight for Frantoio Giovani. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “frantoio” means “olive press” in Italian. We pulled up to the place and entered though what was essentially an oversized garage door. Inside was a SPOTLESS line of the most modern de-pitting, pressing, and bottling line equipment. Giovani is run and managed exclusively by women. And though they do have their own groves, Giovani’s role is to be the “community press” for smaller commercial farmers or even private, family growers who don’t have the means or the need to press and bottle their own production. We tasted some of Giovani’s oil (which was EXCELLENT) and we were off…

Our next stop was the Petra winery. By now we had entered Bolgheri region of coastal Tuscany, home to such world famous wineries as Sassicaia and Guado al Tasso. Petra, to some degree, is Bolgheri’s present and future. Until only about 20 years ago, Bolgheri’s wine production was small and localized. There were very few large or even commercially-oriented producers in this region. In fact, as one drives Bolgheri’s highways and byways, there are scads of vineyards to be seen, but most are populated by very young vines, many too young to even produce fruit suitable for good wine. But the Bolgheri is still Tuscany, and this region’s climate is warmer and more consistent than either Chianti or Montalcino, and the land costs (or DID cost) a fraction of what similar sites would have cost in other Tuscan regions. So this confluence of factors brought the attention of older producers (Tuscan and non-Tuscan alike), as well as start-up, commercially-minded producers and investors who descended on the region like locusts, building vast, hyper-modern wineries. This is Petra. The place IS impressive. Much of it is carved out of the living rock, utilizing modular contruction, shiny steel conveyors, computerized control stations for tank temperatures, soaring cielings, inox tubes runnning through floors and walls, etc.

But as impressive and advanced as all of this is, for my money, it’s that cold as well. The wines are blends of Sangiovese (which our guide all but explicitly stated was planted because the zone in which Petra is located REQUIRES it, not because the winemakers, etc. have any real love for the quintessentially Tuscan variety) and Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and other “international” varieties. For me this was a wine FACTORY. A very well researched and sophisticated one, but a factory nonetheless. We eventually made our way to their tasting room, and while I was hoping for a pleasant surprise, I got exactly what I expected: solid, technically correct wines, but wines that ultimately lacked any sense of “place” or “soul”. They will sell boatloads of wine for sure, but not to me.

Our next stop was the town of Suvereto, and the consensus was one of the highlights of the trip. Suvereto is the hometown of one of our Italian guides, Filippo Magnani. And being a tourism professional, but one that tries to show off the “real Italy” as much as possible though his work, arranged for a meal for the 15 of us or so in the group at his grandmother’s house, with grandma, mom, and auntie doing the cooking. Grandma’s kitchen overlooked the most beautiful LITTLE piazza in Suvereto. They set up their family holiday tables with all the leafs employed. In addition to a few bottles of “professionally” made wine, the table was repelete with jugs of “vino sfuso” (bulk wine) made by local farmers, purchased and stored in large demijohns. Over dinner Filippo told us that he is the 7th generation of his family to have lived in this house.

And we ate well. Plates came and went, and I once again won’t bore you with the entire menu, but I’d venture to say that the dry-fried string beans with tomato sauce and onions and the penne with a pureed yellow pepper sauce were the crowd favorites. Clearly, everyone felt the authentic extension of hospitality and warmth for which Italy is so well known. We deeply thanked Filippo’s family, shuffled off to the town’s main piazza for a caffe` and a little dolce far niente in the warm Tuscan sun. Really lovely stuff.

The next leg of this busy day was a real adventure. We had a date to visit the Grattmacco winery and taste a few of their products. Grattamacco is one of the oldest and most well-repsected “boutique” wineries in coastal Tuscany. It’s production is now, and always has been 100% organic. Now to say that Grattamacco’s location is remote is to grossly understate. Once we left the last paved road, it took neary an hour to reach the tiny winery. We had a look at the fermentation room, full of open topped wooden fermentation vats (called “tini” in Italy), which was little more than a barn. And when we got around to tasting the wines, what a departure from Petra - these are wines with “terroir” out the wazoo - the kind of wines that if you listen, speak to you about their origins and experiences. Their VERY tiny production Vermentino (an Italian white grape variety) was a KNOCKOUT…I don’t think that they even export it…

By this time we were starving, and we had quite a dinner awaiting us. We slowly decended from our perch at Grattamacco and made our way north and west to the sea. We had a date with the great Italian fish chef Luciano Zazzeri and his restaurant La Pineta in the tiny beach town of Marina di Bibbona. Even if you’re in the area, you’d almost surely have to ask a local how to reach it. It sits DIRECTLY on the beach and is backed by a preserved maritime pine forest, so this is not the sort of place one would ever just stumble upon. The waves crashed just a few meters from the front of restaurant that had it’s entire front open to the surf. The room was a quintessetially seafood eatery: simple but oh so elegant. On a Wednesday night, the room was PACKED with tables of male friends sharing laughs and a great meal, couples at candlelit corner tables, and families with smartly dressed children, with equally well-appointed moms and dads fussing and feeding them… The food? WOW. Every course was a fish dish: an amuse bouche of creamed baccala` and potatoes, fritto misto di mare , lobster and asparagus ravioli, etc. Just fantastic. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, DO NOT miss it!

We didn’t finish dinner and get back to the pullman untill after 11 o’clock. A few of us who were still conscious chatted on the long ride back, but most just slept. We returned to Il Tesoro at close to 1 AM. It had been a really great day, and seeing my suitcase in my room when I open the door made it a PERFECT day. I hit the showers, and then hit the sack. I was out in five minute’s time…

TOM CIOCCO