Our final morning in Bordeaux took us to Graves. This was a great opportunity to consider two more ingredients that are fundamental to this region – the grapes and the people. Obviously I’ve been mentioning grapes throughout the previous posts, but this was a nice opportunity to understand properly the four principle grape varieties that…(Read More)
Clever title, no? A group decision on the coach, though I’m not sure many people were hoping for a detailed chemistry lesson, and luckily Tim wasn’t planning on delivering one. We drove south along the toll road through Graves, spotting the odd vineyard among patches of woodland and maize fields. Our overview of…(Read More)
We left the flat gravels of the Left Bank, and headed inland. Over the Gironde within Bordeaux city, and crossed Entre-Deux Mers, an area we are not visiting on this trip; the scenery was already more varied and rolling. Then crossed the very muddy Dordogne (a lot of silt washing down after the recent…(Read More)
Fliss, Tim’s wife is writing this tour’s blog, please forgive me if I go overboard on detail. I’m halfway through studying for the Diploma in Wine and can get a little overexcited about finer points of viticulture, vinification and appellation rules. On the way to the first visit Tim shared some fun…(Read More)
Our final day in Italy dawned as sunny and warm as all the others. A final breakfast at the hotel, we cleared our rooms and put our bags into store, and boarded a small coach which took us round the corner (not quite literally) to the beautiful Palladian Villa Angarano. Giovanna Bianchi Michiel, greeted us…(Read More)
After a free morning in Bassano, much appreciated after our long day on Friday, our coach took us to the town of Breganze, to Col Dovigo, a family winery making wines under this little known DOC. Valentina explained that her great grandmother Caterina moved to the area and purchased vineyard land, later marrying local vigneron…(Read More)
Tim had alerted us to the long drive, and we were all ready at 8am. Towards 11am, after a lot of very flat scenery and a very quick coffee stop, we suddenly saw hills. Then we were driving up into the Colli Orientale de Friuli (eastern hills of Friuli) to arrive at the one of…(Read More)
High in the Cartizze hills of Valdobbiadene is Bisol, one of the most famous prosecco producers. Daniela, our guide, explained that the family have been in the village of Santo Stefano de Valdobbiadene since the 16th Century, the winery was founded in 1875 to make grappa, and in 1899 Desiderio Bisol started making prosecco and…(Read More)
About an hour’s drive to the east of Bassano del Grappa is the town of Venegazzù, home of the Loredan Gasparini estate. Here, Giancarlo Palla and his son Lorenzo make prosecco under the Asolo DOCG and red wines under the Montello DOC. Lorenzo greeted us and under some shade he described the unique terroir…(Read More)
The final Spring tour has taken Tim and a lovely mix of longstanding and brand new wine tourists back to Bassano del Grappa, in the heart of the Veneto, from where we will be discovering Prosecco, the wines of the Colli Orientali de Friuli and Friuli Isonzo, and the little known area of Breganze. This…(Read More)