A Very Volterran Halloween

Monday, October 31, 2022

Volterra, Italy

We arrived in Volterra today. We are staying at La Locanda, a small hotel with 18 rooms, recommended by Rick Steves. 

Our hotel room was ready when we arrived. It is very comfortable and charming.

The receptionist/manager warned us not to come down for breakfast at 7:30 tomorrow because she has a Rick Steves tour group of 27 staying here. She said they would be gone by 8:30 — and they were. (We were curious to see what kind of people take a Rick Steves tour, so we did go down earlier to grab some coffee and take a peek. They seemed to be in their 50’s and early 60’s, mostly female, very chatty and convivial.)

Today and tomorrow are holidays in Italy, and the 4-day weekend brought a lot of crowds to Volterra. On top of that, there is a truffle festival ending tomorrow, and today is Halloween. This is a busy place.

We wandered over to the main square, and we found a very crowded exhibition hall connected with the truffle (and cheese and meat) festival.

These truffles were in a glass case and it was hard to get a decent picture.

The cheese was quite pungent

We enjoyed a little aperitivo in the square. This orange drink is  called “Aperol Spritz.” 

It is, perhaps, the most popular drink in Italy. You see it everywhere. It is not a Halloween drink. It tastes rather bitter, with a hint of orange. It is horrible alone, but not so bad with food, especially greasy or salty food. Ours went well with crostini.

Such scrumptious crostini

The local children started to show up on the main street for trick -or-treating. Our hotel is on the main street, so we were able to see (and hear) everything. The young children wore costumes and went into the little shops on the main street to get candy. It was somewhat low-key. There were not many decorations and not many children. The costumes were very simple. After a while the noise level escalated as the sugar started to take effect and the older kids started to show up. Many of them had little fire-crackers that made loud, explosive noises. Apparently that is part of Halloween here. 

We went to a nice pizza and pasta place for dinner. They brought us a plate of schiacciata while we were reading the menu. It was like a flatter, crispier version of foccacia, or like plain pizza crust. It was like heaven. We ordered the hearty Tuscan vegetable soup to start with. Then I ordered a pizza with fresh porcini mushrooms and Ken got a spicy pizza. Mine was so flavorful, but it was more than I could finish.

The Tuscan vegetable soup with a plate of schiacchiata in the upper right corner

Pizza with porcini mushrooms

When we walked back to the hotel, there were crowds everywhere. The “kids” old enough to drink were out. All the little bars were full, and the overflow filled up the narrow streets. People just stand in the street, talking, drinking, smoking. Every once in a while a vehicle comes along. You don’t see how it will get through, but it does. Progress toward our hotel was slow.

Back in our hotel room, we listened to incessant talking, loud talking and yelling in the street beneath our windows, interspersed with firecrackers. Since tomorrow is a holiday, too, nobody has to get up early. 

Today’s color is orange.

The Festival of the Thrush

Montalcino, Italy

October 30, 2022

The Festival of the Thrush (Sagra del Tordo) is a major event here in the tiny Tuscan hill town of Montalcino. Busloads of tourists are arriving for the festivities. (Literally - busloads. We watched the buses drive up the only road that leads to Montalcino. We have The Best View Ever from our hotel, Dei Capitani.)

The Festival of the Thrush is not like the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival. It’s more like “Let’s go hunting for thrushes and then eat them.” In what feels like a very authentic re-enactment, the residents of the town dress in medieval garb and march to the town hall beating on drums and playing medieval-style trumpets. They are followed by men with large bird-catching nets, and men with bows and arrows, and men with hounds. All of the men look very proud and serious. When they reach the town hall, there are speeches (in Italian, of course, so I no idea what was said), and eventually they leave to engage in archery competitions. 

The town is divided into four quarters. Each quarter has its own flag and colors: Borghetto (white and red), Pianello (white and blue), Ruga (yellow and blue), and Travaglio (yellow and red). The quarters compete in archery and the winning district collects a silver arrow and is permitted to mock the losing districts with songs and jokes for the next year. Many people wear the scarf of “their” quarter. I bought the scarf of the Pianello quarter.

Near the fort, each quarter sets up tents where it is possible to buy local foods and local wines to eat at the picnic tables that have been set up for the festival.

Check out the view from this picnic spot

Local specialties include papardelle (wide, flat noodles) with wild boar, pinci al sugo (thick, handmade spaghetti with meat sauce), rotisserie quail, polenta, porcini mushrooms, roasted chestnuts, tripe, and more. The local wines are primarily rosso and brunello. Much of the cooking seems to be done onsite over wood fires. It had a little of the feel of the state fair or the Three Barons Fair in Anchorage.

Roasted quail

Wild boar ragu over polenta, with brunello wine

Porcini mushrooms

Later in the day there was an even grander parade and an award ceremony. (Ruga won this year.) There were a few women in the parade, mostly as part of a wealthy Lord and Lady pair, or in family groups with children, but there were also a few women in the groups of hunters and musicians.

All of the costumes were well-made. There were real leather doublets and shoes that tied up on the side. There was armor, chain mail, and lots and lots of Men in Tights. But my favorites were the hats! Oh, my!

I can’t decide between the guy in the red tights and the guy in the red hat

Here come the Ladies

Peacock feathers!

Dr. Suess was here

.  .  . And THIS guy. Did he just come back from Fur Rendezvous?

We had a lovely dinner at Il Grifon again, after kind of a run around at some of the other places. The town was very crowded due to the festival. We were told we didn’t need reservations, but that turned out to be incorrect. We tried an antipasto of the local pecorino cheese and discovered that it is fabulous with a little wild honey spread on it.

Today’s color is brown - the color of the song thrush.

Bravo, Brunello

October 29, 2022

Montalcino, Italy

The Montalcino region yields many premium products: truffles, olive oil, honey, pecorino cheese, ancient grains, and saffron. But the most important product is wine. We were told there are over 200 wineries in the Montalcino region. Most of them are small, family-run operations. Most of them grow Sangiovese grapes.

When we arrived in Montalcino, we noticed that 40% of the local businesses in this small town were wine shops. Another 40% were wine bars (or enotecas), and the final 20% was everything else. It was hard to believe how many wine shops there are here. This town is truly all about wine. All about Brunello, to be exact. There seems to be a Brunello mania in the air here.

The most famous of the local wines is Brunello di Montalcino, a red DOCG wine made from 100% Sangiovese grapes. It is very highly regarded in Italy, and we kept hearing about it, so we decided a wine tour would be just the thing. 

We managed to connect with Nadia, a guide who lives in Montalcino, for our tour. We started out at the nearby Canapaccia Winery. Nadia filled us in on the Montalcino region and its wine-producing history. She then explained to us the history of Brunello, its rise to fame, production methods, and more.

Next, the owner of the winery  gave us a tour and explained each step of the wine-making process. It is a very labor-intensive series of steps. The vines are carefully nurtured and only a small number of bunches of grapes are permitted to grow to maturity on each vine. They are hand-picked and must be processed within a few days. It takes at least 5 years to produce each vintage of Brunello, but it may take longer. During that time the wine is carefully checked to make sure the temperature is correct. It starts out in stainless steel tanks, but is moved to barrels for a short time. Before it absorbs too much of the oak flavor from the barrels, the wine is moved to large oak casks, so that the area with which the liquid comes in contact is relatively smaller. This keeps the liquid from absorbing too much of the oak flavor.

Then we enjoyed a real treat. We had lunch on the deck of the winery. The view was spectacular.

Ken and I were the only guests, so we had excellent service. And the food was amazing.

Bruschetta

A happy camper

“Pici” - hand-made pasta with beef

Some delicious beef pot roast with an Italian name and wine-flavored sauce

This was also our chance to drink as much Brunello as we wanted. We were also served some Rosso di Montalcino. It turns out that Rosso is the same grape as Brunello, but it’s allowed to be bottled and sold after aging for only two years.

Ken and I both liked the Rosso better than the Brunello. Both were very smooth, but the Rosso had less of the tannin bitterness.

Next up, Piombaia, a “biodynamic” winery. Biodynamic is a step or two above organic. In addition to not using chemical fertilizers and insecticides, this farm has adopted additional measures to reduce carbon footprint and minimize waste.

• They use compost to fertilize their vines. 
• They plant various greens and grasses between the vines. Some of the greens have deep roots that help to break up the soil and allow water to penetrate. Some are good at adding nitrogen.
• Horses are allowed to graze between the rows of vines. They provide manure, they manage the greens, and their hooves turn over the earth more gently than a much heavier tractor.
  
  
  
• Only natural yeast is used in fermentation.
• Fermentation vats are not temperature-controlled.
• At some point in the process, an earthenware vat is used, but I did not catch the details.
  
  
  

This is a relatively new winery, and it seems they are still figuring things out. Their Rosso and Brunello were more expensive than those produced by Canapaccia, and a lot less smooth.

Our final stop was a saffron business. It was quite interesting. Saffron comes from the stamen of the crocus flower. The owners of the business grow thousands of crocus bulbs and pick the flowers by hand.  The harvest season is going on now, so we were able to see the flowers and the process of removing and drying the stamens. Again, this was something that had to be done by hand. We also got to taste some saffron-flavored honey. It was so good.

Thanks for a wonderful tour, Nadia.

 

Today’s color is Burgundy.