The Wine Adventuring Continues

It's that time.  Time for another wine in review.  In the back of my journal I keep a list of all the wineries we've visited since moving here.  I usually note the name, the date, and who we were with.  It's worked out that about every five months I write a blog post to summarize our wine adventures.  In the past five months (September - January) we did slow down a bit in the winery department.  But, I think we still did respectably.  During this period we visited six new wineries and re-visited six others.

September began with a family visit.  My mom and her boyfriend, and my aunt and her husband flew in from the States for a visit.  It was a whirlwind week that included two nights in Rome, two nights in Florence, and the Biennial Chess Game in Marostica.  La Dolce Vigna, a local winery we've visited before, was having a harvest festival so we were able to take the family.  It was a bit hot but everyone had fun.  We ate, harvested some grapes, and my mom and her boyfriend even helped crush the grapes.  I'm glad my family got to enjoy this unique experience while here in Italy.

Grapes ready for the harvest

Aunt Alicia doing her part with enthusiasm and spirit

Mom showing off the prized grape

Steve doing the heavy lifting

In go the grapes

In goes Mom

We have ventured into the Valpolicella region twice since September.  Tom went once with a friend, visiting wineries I have previously visited: Fratelli Vogadori and Recchia.  He didn't have me to spur him on in the photo-taking department but he did take a photo from the Fratelli Vogadori tasting room.

In early November, we visited one of our favorites Villa Crine and a new winery, Nicolis.  We also visited Benazzoli, which does have vineyards in Valpolicella but their storefront is in the Bardolino area near Lake Garda.  I started following Benazzoli on Instagram.  I was drawn in by the beautiful labels.  It was fun visiting the sisters who run this family winery.

A tasting room we are happily becoming very familiar with - Villa Crine.

Nicolis has two styles of Amarone.  We liked the Ambrosan.

Claudia introducing us to the 'ladies' of Benazzoli

A couple of the GORGEOUS labels.

North of us there is a small wine region called Breganze.  They produce white and red wines and their specialty is a sweet wine called Torcolato.  Our first venture took us to Beato Bartolomeo Breganze in November and then in mid-January we visited Ca' Biasi and LeVigne di Roberto.

The team at Beato Bartolomeo was very good to us.   We had the boys with us that day and they typically don't allow dogs in their storefront but they let us bring them in.  We got to try a number of their wines.  Turns out Beato is quite literally a gas station winery with actual pumps.  They also have a great boxed wine that Tom happily nursed for several weeks.  

A mix of red, white and sparkling wines at Beato

Please sir, filler up

Space for you if you want to pull on up but bring your own bottle!

We visited Ca' Biasi and Le Vigne di Roberto on the same day in mid January.  They are less than a mile apart.  I loved the tasting room at Ca' Biasi.  It is a hundreds-year-old dining hall.  The fire was going and while our hostess did not speak English, she was a great sport and lined up the wines for our testing.  We even got some delicious sliced meat to accompany the tasting.

Let the tasting begin

The star of the region - Torcolato

We followed the rabbit down the hole and ended up at Le Vigne di Roberto.  We came in about 20 minutes before closing but Roberto's daughter Simona was great.  She did a tasting for us and then took us downstairs to see the cellar.

Tom with our trusty wine-tasting companions - Colt and Henry

A size for every occasion

Sparkling wine getting happy

The view

Maxwell came out for the holidays and spent two weeks on the road with Tom, visiting Ireland, Cyprus, and Poland.  Another two weeks were spent here in Italy.  We went to Maeli's "Cantine Aperte a Natale" event just days before Christmas.  It featured wine tasting with food pairing, tours of the cellar, and art displays by local artists.  We also took Max up into the hills to meet Marco Buvoli and visit his Pino Nero workshop.

We first discovered Maeli in February 2018.  It is one of our favorites.

Drinking some red with a VERY large panatone in the background.

Maeli is in Colli Euganei just south of Vicenza

Yellow Moscato - the specialty of the house

One of the local artist paintings I really liked

Marco's Opificio del Pinot Nero is another favorite.  We love introducing Marco to family and friends.

Bring on the Pinot Nero sparkly

Tom in his happy place

Marco's reds are very nice and will only get better with age.

Max and Tom with Marco in the "workshop"

A favorite for us this time around turned out to be Parco Del Venda, a winery some friends invited us to in January.  The minute we saw that their logo is a squirrel we were won over.  We have a special affinity for the squirrel but that is another story.  The wines are good too (smile).  We particularly liked their Merlot and Tai Rosso, which are less than 4 euro a bottle and a VERY nice drinking wine.  We bought a case of 12 each and I'm glad we did because we're almost halfway through both of them and we visited the winery only a month ago.  Gulp!

The squirrel of Parco Del Venda

Oh Tai Roso...how we love you!

The wine is good but friends make the experience even better.

So there you have it.  From fields to cellars to tasting rooms, we continue to have fun exploring the wine regions of northeastern Italy.  In the next couple months we have plans to visit Friuli, Piedmont and Umbria.  If you have any recommendations on wines we should try or wineries we should visit please let me know.

Cheers!