Catching Up and Soaking Up Soave

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It's hard to believe that it's been four months since our new adventure in Italy began.  Time is going by so quickly.  I know I've been remiss in posting to my blog and I hope to get better.  I do fairly regular photo posts on my public Instagram page so you can check that out if you want to see more timely updates.  You don't need an Instagram account to view it either. 

So...a lot has happened since my last post.  We are all settled into our house and had an Open House/House Warming party at the end of September.  We served Arizona wines at the party.  Here is the line up we set out for folks to try.
Love highlighting Arizona wines...even while in Italy.
Tom and I had a ton of fun and we were having such a great time with our guests that we don't have a single photo from the party!  Just this picture of the wines we pulled out.  We had about thirty people stop by and it was a great mix.  Our Italian landlord came by with her mother and sister; our Italian neighbors came over too and two of Tom's Italian co-workers stopped by. We then had a lot of friends we met during our stay in the hotel and during our Vicenza orientation tours, and then several of my co-workers came by.  Unexpected we got totally blessed by some very thoughtful housewarming gifts and some great wine to add to our collection.     

Earlier in the month we traveled to Cortina, up in the Italian Alps, over Labor Day weekend.  We had a wonderful time and I'll try and share some photos from that trip in another post.  It was my birthday weekend trip.  It has become pretty standard that Tom and I rarely do birthday or Christmas presents for each other.  We prefer to do trips or go to concerts.  I've been pretty blessed.  When we lived in Germany I got to spend one birthday weekend in the Champagne region of  France and another in Sicily.  And Christmas gifts have included a trip to Las Vegas to see Celine Dion and tickets to go see the Dixie Chicks.        

In mid-September Tom went to Slovenia for the weekend with a friend and I helped harvest grapes at a local winery.  I'll try to blog about that too.  I visited Nove, where they specialize in ceramics.  It'll be a great place to take guests.  And we got to help make homemade gnocchi with our landlord's family for Sunday lunch a couple weeks ago.    

For Columbus Day holiday weekend we stayed at home.  But what's so great about our location here in northern Italy is there are a lot of wonderful things to see and do that are only an hour or so away.  On Saturday we drove to a town called Soave, which is about 35 miles away.  That is the distance we used to travel to get from our house in southern Arizona to Tucson.

Soave is a great little walled city, with a medieval castle on the hillside.  It is surrounded by vineyards and is know for its white wines..called Soave.  The city was having a chocolate festival so we walked through town, went up the hill to see the entry for the castle and then headed off into the country to visit a couple wineries.  Here are some of our photos.
One of the entry gates.  You can see the castle on the hill.
Entry gate on the other side of town.
The city wall
One of the entry ways
Pathway leading up to castle
One of the hilltop views

Entry into the castle
Soave Region
Bought some great liquor filled chocolates here
Now those are my kind of chocolate bars!
After we were done exploring the town of Soave we headed out to find a couple wineries.  We didn't know what to expect, not having an appointment for tastings, but the two places we visited were wonderful and gave us a great introduction to the local wines.  We visited Villa Mattielli and Filippi. 
Making wines from vineyards that date back to the early 900s!
Got to sample seven wines here.
Crews were bringing in the harvest that weekend.
Filippi was up in the hills.  They cultivate Garganega and Trebbiano di Soave grapes.  They use organic methods so their wines are bonafide organic.  The estate dates back to the fourteenth century but the current winemaker has been producing Filippi for about 15 years.  In addition to wines they have an agriturismo and a simple campsite for RVs.

We had a great tasting with Giulia (who we adored) and also go introduced to some delicious local cheese that we ended up going back into Soave to buy before heading home.
The boys enjoyed Soave too.
Our beautiful line up
After the tasting Giulia took us for a walk to see the vineyards
On top of the world...looking down on creation....
Us with Miss Giulia
The holiday weekend also included a wonderful lunch at a great local restaurant Tom found not to far from our house - Molin Vecio.  The food was delicious and they've got a great outdoor area that includes a water mill.  And on Monday we took the boys out to a local lake for a walk.  It turned out to be a very relaxing weekend but still filled with a lot of new adventures.
Molin Vecio Mill
Lago di Fimon
  
  

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