L’ultima giornata - CHIANTI

At last night’s dinner, we took a vote about today’s schedule, and but for one dissenter, the vote was for a “lighter” day, so the two wineries we had scheduled was whittled down to one…and I think that even the dissenter was happy once we entered the magical place that is the Chianti region.

Chianti, more than Montalcino, Montepulciano, the Maremma, Bolgheri, for me, is a COZY place. With all of Italy’s nearly incalculable beauty, the KIND of beauty that one encounters can rarely be considered “cozy”, but Chianti is that exception: the warm, sheltering hills, the sweet rust-colored stone farm houses hung with green shutters, the vegetable gardens, the flower boxes full of geraniums, the fragrant, swirling breezes and that LIGHT! Those of us who had been to the Chianti region before revelled in it once again, recounting our respective “first times”. And those who had never been to Chianti before did lots of gasping and sighing and pointing as they became seduced by this magical place.

The cypress-lined roads pitched and twisted through densely forested hillsides and the Renaissance villas perched above their vineyards. Large black-and-white winged taccole hunted grasshoppers in the dappled grasses and hawks spun and rose in the skies above. The scrubby brush at the gravelly roadside pitched and rustled in the flower-scented winds.

Today, we were headed to a small, organic winery called Podere Terreno to not only tour and taste, but to take a short cooking class with Gioia Milani, an expert in Tuscan cuisine. So we all donned aprons and Gioia with her mix of wry humor, Italian tough love, and a warm smile, walked us through the preparation of penne with a sauce of tomatoes, zucchini, sheep’s milk ricotta, and basil; straccetti (thinly sliced and shredded beef top round cooked with garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and arugula; and a mascarpone, raisin, pine nut, and almond cookie dessert. Many folks got their first look at, and use of a mezzaluna - a NECESSITY in an Italian kitchen, but still a bit of a white elephant to most non-Italians. We crowded into the kitchen - some toasted bread for the bruschetta, others peeled cloves of garlic, but because of space constraints, most folks just opened their noses and enjoyed the smells coming off the antique stove…

And as the saying goes, many hands makes light work, so it was already time to eat. Clearly the menu was no surprise, but having had a hand in preparing our own meal for once made up forsuch a small disappointment. We dined al fresco on a BEAUTIFUL bright and cool afternoon - very leisurely - while we sipped on the very clean and “correct” wines from Podere Terreno. We lingered long over our coffees and watched “Napoleone”, the estate’s newest canine addition, take control of the whole gathering, literally barking orders thither and yon…

…on our way back to Siena. The rest of the afternoon and early evening was free time, so before dinner I went for a LONG walk up and down the steep city streets, admiring that peculiar Italian blend of great strength and great delicacy - the palaces, the food, the language, and the faces of the people. Italian cities strike the visitor with the exaltation of humanity’s finer powers with the simultaneous supression of the baser ones…even the mesticherie - the shops that sell mops and buckets and dustrags - still manage to cut an elegant figure on a streetscape for which high aesthetics are fundamentally de rigueur.. I passed shops selling silks tended by young, hazel-eyed beauties, working-class caffes with the Totocalcio results scribbled on blackboards, a lighting store whose window was hung with scores of different models of lightswitches, and travel agencies promoting Aegean cruises. One thing that takes a bit of time to realize, especially in a place as closely associated with beauty and refinement as Italy, that this is HOME for these people, and that they have all the same concerns, pressures, loves, that we have (though in my mind, it IS a bit easier to deal with these mundane difficulties living as an Italian!). Foreigners tend to romanticize Italy, and it’s not all beer and skittles (like waiting for 4 hours at the post office to retrieve a package), but it’s a lot easier to romanticize a first kiss than baby’s first nosebleed, if you know what I mean…there’s got to be something there to begin with, and I think Italy qualifies as having something there to begin with, no?…

The “Last Supper” was held at a famous Sienese restaurant called Osteria Le Logge. Needless to say, we ate VERY well, but since this was the last night of the trip, we all banged our heads together, and came up with an idea to do some “blind” tasting at the table - for example we ordered three 1999 100% Sangiovese wines all from different regions (Brunello, “Super Tuscan”, and one from Romagna) and had a little roundtable “educated guessing” session as to what, where, when, etc…We left the restaurant a little more tipsy than usual, and ambled back to the hotel a little more slowly, perhaps from carrying the weight of the knowledge that our wonderful little jag had come to an end. We all said our goodbyes and see you soons complete with double-cheek kisses standing in the hotel’s opulent lobby. Everyone seemed genuinely satisfied with the trip, and I was happy to have helped in whatever small way in having brought this trip to fruition…But my voyage was to continue the next day…I was taking some extra days to visit old friends in Florence, and was very excited about REALLY slipping into everyday Italian life. I would be staying with my old friend Piero Bongiorno at his 1000 year old apartment near piazza Santa Croce, so rather than guided tours and lavish meals it would be more about grabbing quick coffees with Piero at his local caffe`, and picking over a pile of green beans at the mercato San Lorenzo, and spinnig some reggae discs…I should have a few yarns about this “leg” in the coming days…

I JUST WANTED TO USE A FEW LINES HERE TO THANK YOU, THE READERS, FOR FOLLOWING THESE RAMBLINGS. GRAZIE MILLE!

TOM CIOCCO