The blog for this tour is written by Fliss, Tim’s wife.
Having heard lovely things about five previous tours, and seen many photos, it was great to experience the sights, sounds and flavours of Umbria at last! I’m writing a detailed blog, so people who have never been on tour get a fuller flavour of what we get up to. You may want to skim read this!
Our travel day went very smoothly yesterday (Wednesday), and we were in Perugia in time to book into La Fortuna Hotel, with its warren of corridors and stairs revealing rooms of all shapes and sizes with views across the old town, and to stroll around the old town before our introductory dinner.
Perugia is a lovely town, buzzing with students, and endless gelatarias, chocolate shops, cafes and restaurants. A drink looking out over the roof tops was brought to our table along with an array of snacks, which a non Tim Syrad Wine Tours traveller may have found enough for the evening. But we did them justice, and still found room for Caffe di Perugia’s beautifully clean tasting pear and ginger risotto, followed by pork and finally tiramisu. We were formally introduced to Umbrian wines, a fruity Grechetto, a more complex Orvieto and then a Rosso di Sagrantino, all of which went beautifully with the meal.
It’s a small, and as we like to say, ‘select’ group this week : just 15 people including Tim and me. All but four of us have been on tour before, and there has been quite a bit of reminiscing about highs and lesser heights of previous tours. It’s hard to spot who are the four ‘newbies’, who are on their first tour, and there is already a great esprit de corps.
I learnt next morning that everyone but Tim and me partook of ice-cream on the way home, so I’m upping my game tonight.
Today we were on the bus at 9.30am, and after a half hour’s drive arrived at Dionigi, in the Montefalco region to the south of Perugia. Roberto and Carolina are now old hands at introducing what they do to Tim’s tour groups, but Carolina’s enthusiasm and humour were inf
ectious. She speaks great English, so did the talking, while Roberto, who doesn’t speak English, walked us into the vineyard where we learnt that while this is a fifth generation family wine business, most of the vines are less than 25 years old. Umbria clearly gets so much sunshine that south facing slopes are not necessary to produce beautiful ripe grapes. We even examined the differences between Sagrantino (smaller leaves with furry undersides) and Caberet Sauvignon.
Through the barrel cellar, with an array of barrels of different shapes and sizes, and into a fabulous tasting. Two whites, made from Grechetto, one with some oak fermentation. Then two Rosso di Montefalco, which are blends of Sagrantino, Sangiovese and Merlot, one from 2003 the other from 2011, and a Reserva Rosso (2010) which includes Cabernet Sauvignon in the mix.
The big comparison was of pure Sagrantino di Montefalco, 100% Sagrantino grape, with wines from 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2007.
This was fascinating – a great exploration of what happens as this tannic wine, made from very small grapes, evolves over time. The 2007 was surprisingly approachable, and very balanced, but for me the tannins still needed to soften, which they had started to do in the 2004. The 2001 was lovely, demonstrating that these really are wines to lay down, achieving fabulous length and elegance. We were fascinated by the comparison between the 2002 and 2003. 2002 was a wet, cold year, with wines given very low ratings by experts. 2003 was blazing hot, making for a huge wine, which amazingly had not stood the test of time and was beyond its best. So why had the Rosso from 2003 been so nice?
The Sagrantino grape is very small, whereas the Sangiovese grape is much bigger, and therefore (and this has got a bit technical for me) better able to withstand heat and water stress. At least that’s what Tim told us later.
My personal favourite was the 2002, which I guess reflects my liking of austere lower alcohol wines.
We finished with a Passito di Sagrantino from 2008. Passito wines are made by drying ripe grapes on straw mats, and then fermenting an even more concentrated must. For many ways they were the only way qu
ality wine could be made from Sagrantino. We also tasted a Grechetto Passito from 2010 which had lovely clean fruit. Both went beautifully with some gorgonzola our hosts had generously provided along with some lovely antipasti and bruschetta made with their own olive oil.
One of two tried the grappa, which is matured in barrels that Sagrantino has previously occupied – and had picked some colour in the process. They tell me it was excellent.
No-one wanted to leave, and we thanked Roberto and Caroline for their generosity of time and food and wine and headed on to Raina, where Francesco Maraina explained our lunch menu, which he had prepared, and the wines, which he had made.
With the tomato, aubergine and buffalo mozzarella starter we had a Trebbiano Spoletino, a revelation to me with my rather snobby opinion of Trebbiano generally. Fresh, acidic, nothing like the far more common Trebbiano Toscana.
With our pasta, sausage, cabbage and cannelloni bean dish we had a Rosso di Montefalco 2011, and with our slow cooked turkey leg we had a Sagrantino di Montefalco 2009. All lovely, but we were not really up to too much detailed dissection of their finer points, and relaxed into an enjoyable leisurely lunch.
Their 2008 Passito went beautifully with the carrot cake with sour cherries. We gathered for a group phot0 and dog love in, before heading back in the bus through the glorious scenery bathed in summer afternoon sunshine.
