Cantina Aperte 2006: Tuscan Style

What a weekend (5-26-06 to 5-29-06)! It began with the "plan" to depart by 10am. That sounded all good..in theory. We found ourselves delayed about an hour because of a major Italian bike race touring right through where we needed to go. Apparently, this race is so famous, I should actually know the name of it, but all I can tell you is it begins with a "G". So after much re-routing, we find ourselves actually in the race. If only the camera & video camera were out! We had people all cheering for us, because they thought we were famous. It was so cool. Times I wish I kept an Italian flag on me...anyway, we finally get flagged down the by police to pull over, just about 20 ft from the road we wanted to take to get to the highway. We sit and ponder for a while, only to determine that I with the most pregnant belly, must try to convince the police to let us pass through the main street of racing to get to the highway...with some tummy-rubbing cohersion (NO i didn't!!!), it worked...and we were on our way...or so we thought.

Delays in/near/around Florence allowed us ample time to watch The Count of Monte Cristo on the portable DVD player the Keller's provided.

And then my awesome directions from mappy.com (whooops)...put us about, oh, I don't know 2 hours out of the way??? We'll let the driver, aka, Greg, be the judge of that. We finally made it to San Gimigiano and were very much happy to be in the Tuscan hills. The vineyards looked great and we were excited to begin the weekend.

Besides summing up the entire trip with obvious: wine & cheeses & meats at the cafes, wine at the vineyards, shopping in the streets of San G, and car alarms going off in the middle of the night (what?? in rural tuscany??), the vacation was wonderful.

On Saturday, we went to Banfi, a well-known winery in Montalcino, famous for the Brunello wine. We stocked up, or as some could say, we purchased a small restaurant's supply worth...we found our way back to San G for dinner & drinks.

On Sunday, or CANTINA APERTE, we departed early to get a 'head start' on the Italians. Who knows if that was a good idea. After realizing we had a horrible map, as given out by the Cantina Aperte people, we found our way to neat wine shops & started the tasting. We found our first winery at Pruneto where they had AMPLE maps & ample amounts of snacks (we were starving) and Chianti (go figure, as we were in the Chianti region for the festival). After a great tour of the Pruneto's cellar & much snacks, we went off to the next winery, and the next, and the next...I think we estimated 7-10 wineries/shops that day....yeah, you could say Chianti-ed out.

9 cases of wine later, the Smiths decided enough vino. And I will have my share to drink in September....

We returned home and had dinner at a great trattoria as suggested by a friend, Trattoria Chiribiri. Great food, extremely HOT restaurant...big enough to fit no more than 15-20 diners. Right next to the kitchen!! We could see them preparing our food through the open door. It was great.

Last minute shopping on Monday before we departed for home to pick up the doggies at "camp". And yes, they were ecstatic to see us. Although the kennel owners told us they were "bravi" and well-behaved, I am convinced that is the only word they use to describe all the dogs who stay there. They have good business sense.

Now you can check out the pics from Cantina Aperte 2006. Of course, I'm still learning this whole pic-uploading thing, and they're completely out of order...so just imagine, a sequence.

Ciao!