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We were greeted with prosecco and made pasta (from
scratch! — a first for me), homemade pesto, eggplant
parmesan, and potato gnocchi topped with a tomato
and cheese sauce. My husband swears it was the best
meal we ate the whole trip, but I think he may be a little
biased!
From Positano we took the train up to the Chianti region
of Tuscany, where we visited wineries and ate great,
hearty Tuscan food. Truffles were in season, so I took
the opportunity to enjoy that treat as much as possible.
Rouses sponsors the New Orleans Wine and Food
Experience, and during the event, we went to a wine
dinnerwithfriends fromRepublicNationalDistributing,
where we discussed our plans to honeymoon in Italy.
They gave us some great recommendations and set up
tours for Billy and me. We visited Terrabianca, which
not only makes great wine, but also presses olive oils.
We then moved on to Il Molino di Grace, which I
kept pronouncing as “gra-say” until I found out that
the owner is an American, Tim Grace, who fell in love
with Tuscany and bought a winery (my new retirement
goal!). Thankfully I found out before we visited with
him at his beautiful estate.
We also went to Rocca delle Macie, where we toured
their immense cellar and bottling facility, even though it
was technically closed for All Saints Day on November
1
st
. We learned that in order to clean their huge barrels,
men (we’re assuming pretty small ones), climb in and
the hose is fed in to wash them out. Our guide told us
that when they forget to let one out, that’s when you get
a real full “bodied” wine (ha!).
We tasted lots of great wine, and came home with 7
bottles of our own, along with some olive oil! Our
favorite tidbit of information learned about the wine
was that if you see a black rooster on the neck of a bottle
of Chianti Classico, that means that the grapes were
grown in the sub-region between Florence and Siena.
Another good thing learned was that Billy stopped
pronouncing it “chee-ante”.
Our next stop was nearby in Florence, where we
wandered art galleries and beautiful old churches,
saw the magnificent David, and continued our pasta,
pizza and wine tour of the country. We also had our
first gelato of the trip here, which I had been looking
forward to for awhile!
Billy & Ali at their cooking class offered by the restaurant Buca di Bacco.