Athena Blogs

This weekend I visited the beautiful Chianti region of Tuscany, Italy. As the name implies, this region is known for it's Chianti Classico, a red wine made from Sangiovese grapes. Chianti is located about 45 minutes outside of Florence, by bus, so we decided to make the day trip out there in celebration of my boyfriend Zach's 21st Birthday. Zach was especially excited about the trip because he had gotten several vineyard recommendations from his wine teacher (yes, "Wines of Italy" is a real class).

We took the professors advice, and started at the first vineyard, a castle at the top of a switchback ridden hill. We were already out of breath after a few minutes of walking up the steep incline, and we noticed a car drive up the hill and stop very near to us. The woman rolled down her window and told us in perfect english that the vineyard was not open today. She explained that she lived there, and that it was off season so the vineyard was not yet open for wine tasting. We were disappointed to hear this, but then she kindly offered to drive us to the nearest vineyard, which was nearly 5 miles away, on top of a huge mountain.

We were thrilled to hear that we didn't have to walk and graciously accepted her offer. In the car ride over we learned that she is from the U.S, but married an Italian man 20 years ago and has lived in a castle in Tuscany ever since. We also met her son, who was 11, and had just finished his soccer match.

She described herself as a "soccer mom" and I couldn't help but chuckle when I compared this woman who lived in a castle in the sprawling region of Tuscany to the typical American "soccer mom." After driving up yet another huge hill, we got out of the car and she walked us up to the vineyard, set us up with the wine pourer and sent us on our way.

It was so refreshing to experience genuine kindness and see someone go so far out of their way to help a bunch of lost American students find a vineyard. We were all inspired by her kindness, and the day was off to a great start. We were awe struck with the beauty of the castle. It was massive, with a large arched entrance opening up into a stunning courtyard.The castle also boasted the most amazing view of Tuscany that we would see all day.

We enjoyed tasting 4 different bottles of wine at the castle, followed by a dessert liquor and a fabulous homemade biscotti. We were off to a great start. To make things better, the lady at the vineyard offered to get someone to drive us to the next vineyard, which was in the town of Greve, nearly 5 miles away. Thrilled with the offer, we accepted and were on our way.

A nice man drove us into town, dropped us off, and we were on our way. The town was adorable and there were no tourists to be found. We came across a farmers market in the city center, and couldn't help but indulge in the largest fresh olives we had ever seen. We ate so many olives.

The day just kept getting better and better. Next we stopped at a restaurant called Mangiano Mangiano, where we ate delicious pasta and mentally prepared for the next winery. After lunch, we began walking to the next winery, which we thought was just a short 15 minute walk down the road. Unfortunately, the street was too narrow and had no side walk, so we had to walk on a dirt path adjacent to the main road to avoid being hit by a car.

We thought the road would lead directly to the winery, but instead we found ourself on a farm/vineyard.We asked the farm owner if he could point us in the direction of the vineyard, and he walked us across his land and told us to walk through this forest, around a field, and we would eventually hit the winery.We traipsed through the forest, climbed a hill adjacent to a stream, sloshed through mud, and eventually found ourselves at the winery!

We had gone through quite a journey to arrive at the winery, but it was all worth it. We sampled another 4 wines, including a delicious Rosse that we had to take home with us.Each wine was different, but all of them were enjoyable. I wanted to buy one of every bottle, but knew that it would be impossible to carry them around Europe with me for the next 4 months. After the tasting we headed to the bus stop where we anxiously awaited our ride home. We caught the bus and enjoyed a scenic sunset drive back to Florence. I can say that this was an absolute perfect day, one of the best that I've had so far in Italy.