Wine Club Trip: Travel Journal - July 27, 2008

Italy Trip - Day 1: Bella Tuscany

This week the Wine Club is taking a trip to Castello di Gabbiano in Tuscany, Italy. We want to include everyone in the experience, so you will get 6 daily emails updating you with daily adventures.

Today, we emerged from our 15 hour plane ride into the mid-day Tuscan sunshine. The landscape was so beautiful, the Etruscan walls leaving the city humbling, the people so warm and welcoming. I immediately met 6 of our group during the ride to the Castello. We were invited to enjoy coffee or tea with cakes during check-in, which after a long flight with not much more than pretzels I found immensely civilized and appreciated.

Our room is gorgeous, about 1 mile walk from the Castello, with a view of the Castle and the surrounding vineyards. After we unpack and shower, we head to the welcome reception.

Gabbiano has received us like kings in the music room with a full display of crustini, fresh vegetables and cheeses, served with their own house Spumante - a Sparkling wine not available to us in the US. What a treat! The group twitters about their rooms, the Mercedes Town Cars that picked us up at the airport, and the beauty of the landscape.

We head onto the restaurant, Il Cavaliere, for dinner, where we are treated to welcome feast by Fabrizio, the chef and joined by Cornelia and Ivano Reali, the managers of the Castle. We have a four course meal of fresh herbed cheeses, salad greens, local beef, fresh mushroom risotto and finally a vanilla frozen custard with apricot mousse. With this, of course, is the wine: more Spumante, then Pinot Grigio, then Chianti Classico and finally, the Riserva. Everyone agrees the Riserva is excellent with the beef.

After several hours under the stars the candles have burned down and the last drop of lemoncello is savored, and we head to bed. Tomorrow, we have cooking classes. Perhaps we will learn how to make that vanilla custard...