Today we made the 1 1/4-hour drive to Montalcino, in the heart of the Val d’Orcia. The hilltop town that we had missed in 2019, is the center for the large wine industry known as Brunello wine.
As we drove, we were struck by the normally green landscape now was yellow and burnt. The Val d’Orcia is now shown with the only green being olive trees and the assorted vines from the vineyards. The region has not had any measurable rain since June! The vineyards have sought guidance from Napa and Sonoma for techniques used in a drought.
We walked around the hilltop town and toured the Fortezza, the fort on the hilltop.
The town is very pretty, and it’s obvious that it’s economy is solely based on the wine industry. The number of Enotecas, or wine bars where you can do winetasting from any of the vineyards, is incredible!
We had lunch in town prior to our afternoon booking for our Montalcino wine tasting.
Our wine tasting this time was held at the small, family owned, Capanna di Cencioni, which started producing wine in 1958. The wines of Montalcino remained under appreciated Italian “table wine” until 1967 when a Brunello wine won first place in an international competition. Since then, every vineyard now produces Brunello wine, all at different rates of perfection.
We sampled 6 different wines: a white Brunello, a rose’, a super Tuscan, and 3 Brunellos. Unless you are like me, and not a red wine person, you would say “one was better than the rest”!! Their 2012 reserve Brunello retails at the winery for 100 Euros, so I am sure very pricey in the toney restaurants of New York and LA.
Our hosts at the Air BNB cottage brought over homemade limoncello, that comes from their own lemon trees. They have been wonderful, and even are paying our parking ticket from Arezzo (must be paid at post office within 10 days of infraction! Not our fault. Had parking pass, but since it was in Italian, we could not read it, and placed it upside down on the dashboard!)
Afterwards, we had dinner at the villa and enjoyed the sunset from the garden. Tomorrow, we make another long drive to Gubbio, in northeastern Umbria, on our final full day in our Tuscan villa, VinciLuna!
Sunset viewing from the garden of olive trees