Baby’s First Brunello

I had the pleasure of spending a day in and around Montalcino at the invitation of my (American) friends from virtual Italian class, Kristin and her husband. On a gray, damp day, we toured the cellars of Castello Tricherci vineyard, and then had a tasting and lunch. I popped into the village of Montalcino proper on my way back to Roccastrada.

Kristin and I have been in weekly group Italian classes together on Zoom since summer 2020, but this was the first time we met in person, and she and her husband, Peter, were so kind to take my vagabond self under their generous wings for the day on their trip celebrating his retirement. The winery property was stunning; it sits on the Via Francigena and the friendly dogs greet pilgrims and other visitors.

My knowledge of wine is that I know some grape names and that cooler weather = sweeter wines. And that there’s a bunch of wines from Italy whose names start with ‘B’ that are the fancy ones. Despite my undeveloped palate only being able to distinguish between Yellowtail on one end and what my brother serves at Thanksgiving on the other, I had a clue that this Brunello di Montalcino was the good stuff. My important, well-informed review of these wines is that they were very much on the Thanksgiving end of the spectrum.

Vineyard with Montalcino in background

One of the cortile at Castello Tricherchi. The white plaque between the arches shows the date 1441 and three circles (tre circhi). Our guide Sara explained that, as a palindrome, the date would have been very auspicious, and the circles may have represented coins, as the family were bankers.

Wine is cool and everything but have you ever met a DOG?

Here they are alerting us to arriving pilgrims

Garden dreams in Montalcino: fruit trees with fava beans under them

This typography smorgasbord is perfect. Is this a Word doc? InDesign? Publisher? Hand-set printing press?

Montalcino town was very quiet. I was there during afternoon pausa when most stores are closed, plus it was dreary out.

I mean the lichen patterns were more interesting to me than the town itself but that’s mostly on me, not Montalcino.