Dinner at Grandma's
On the schedule for today was a tour at the Salcheto Vineyard in Montepulciano. Learning more about wines and how they are crafted was really neat and unlike anything I'd seen before. The high tech techniques were fascinating and unique. For example, they use eco friendly methods to facilitate the process of creating smooth wines. Metal bulbs are integrated into the rooftop of the wine cellars which transport light throughout the three floors beneath ground. The energy is then redirected and used for daily operations of the facility. So keeping large pieces of equipment is done by the use of renewable energy and lots of effort.
Once we had finished our tour, we were served lunch. This meal was more similar to the size of a normal portioned lunch you'd receive in America. We started with the typical cheese and meat board along with a light glass of their rosé. Next, we had a bowl of farro salad which was pretty bland. It was the consistency and color of oatmeal but more grainy. However, it was crazy how much better the farro tasted after a touch of balsamic vinaigrette was drizzled on top of it! Once that little ingredient was added, I was more satisfied with the taste. Following the farro was a tomato bisque that was fabulous. I love a good tomato soup and this hit the spot. That would wrap it for lunch and I was perfectly pleased with the quality and portion size of the meal.
Dinner would be really fun as we would head to this little restaurant in Montepulciano that was actually in an older woman's house- Ristorante Cittino. She would literally serve us dinner in her livingroom. The meal was very eccentric in the way it was served. It wasn't really my style but an experience and a good story for sure.
The first course was a gnocchi dish with tomato sauce, nothing too fancy, just a good ole classic dish. The flavors were really pure and you could tell that it was made froms scratch.
Next, we were brought a fettuccini pasta with a mushroom sauce. It wasn't my favorite but I tried it. The sauce was a little too heavy for my liking. The texture was more like a gravy and tasted like mushroom soup. The flavor was simply too bold for the pasta.
Following the mushroom dish, we were served a platter with a variety of meats with potatoes and collards. When I heard that this was the next course, I was pretty dissappoint since I had in my mind that we would be eating the typical salami, prosciutto, and bierwurst. However, to my delight, the tray full of meats was actually a plate of pork loin and roasted chicken. Although sausage was served, it was more like a kielbasa versus a salty salami sausage. I think everyone was pretty pumped for the chicken as that was the first meat to be cleared from each plate. We hadn't seen much chicken served in Italy since we'd been overseas in part because it had a negative stigma attached to it. Chicken was seen as a food that poor people would eat since it is less expensive and easier to get ahold of in comparison to other meats of a higher caliber.
Finally, for dessert, we were served a chocolate cake. We all were trying to figure out if this meant that the cake itself was chocolate along with the icing or if it was a vanilla cake with chocolate icing. Rachel, one of the girls on the trip, said that her nana referred to chocolate cake as a vanilla cake with chocolate icing. This was a new concept to me, something that I had never heard of before, but what do you know, she was right because that's exactly what was brought out from the kitchen. The cake was incredibly flavorful with a heavy rum taste. It was almost like they had soaked the bottom of the cake in rum immediately before serving it to use. The cake wasn't squishy and soggy but you could tell that it had some liquid absorbed into the cake- if only I could have enjoyed it. The texture was pleasing, but I couldn't get over the pungent taste of the heavy liquor.
Overall, the dinner was fairly good. Was it my favorite that we'd had in Florence, absolutely not; however, the experience was well worth it. I loved seeing a more traditional, family style atmosphere. I think everyone truly felt more relaxed in this environment which is what made the meal so delightful and memorable.
