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.

The Allegory of Good Government

Siena, Italy

October 27, 2022

Hello, there. I have been blogcrastinating very nicely, thank you. I had very bad jet lag for the first week of our trip, not to mention a very busy schedule in Florence, and I just couldn’t manage to find time to work on my blog. Now I am ready to start blog-producing.

Instead of starting at the beginning of our trip, I am going to try to keep this in real time, more or less. I will fill in the earlier installments when I get a chance.

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Siena is a beautiful Tuscan hill town. It is an ancient walled city full of yellow and tan and rust-colored (or “burnt sienna”) stone buildings. The cobbled streets are winding and confusing, chaotic and fascinating. There are alleys and tunnels and steep stairways and unexpected little piazzas with sculptures and fountains.

Today we followed the “Siena Walk” audio tour created by Rick Steves. We listened to the audio tour on earbuds and followed Rick’s directions as we moved from site to site. 

In the center of Siena is a large public square called Il Campo. It’s been the heart of Siena since the 12th century. 

City Hall towers over this space. As Siena was one of the earlier democracies, City Hall was one of Siena’s most important buildings. The magnificent tower at City Hall guaranteed that everyone knew how important Siena and the City Hall were.

Il Campo is also notable for the Palio, when horses race dangerously around the perimeter of Il Campo while thousands of fans cheer the contrades (rival Sienese neighborhoods). Check out the beginning of the James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, for a good look at the Palio. 

We continued on the walk until we arrived at the gorgeous 13th-century Gothic cathedral - the Duomo. We stopped to tour the inside, and ran into our friends, Erica and Lynda. I am intrigued by how this immense, sophisticated, and durable structure could have been built with the very limited technology available at the time. 

We saw a number of other interesting sights, including several statues of a she-wolf nursing her cubs - the symbol of Siena. Why do we never hear of a “he-wolf”?

Later in the day we went back to the CIty Hall to tour the Civic Museum. Siena was a secular, self-governing, democratic republic. There were two frescoes in the City Hall that I especially wanted to see - The Allegory of Good Government, and The Allegory of Bad Government. I have a pretty good idea what constitutes good and bad government (I live in Anchorage, right), but I was very curious to see what a 14th-century artist thought it looked like. So it was really disappointing to climb all those stairs inside only to find out that these pieces of art were being restored. I did buy some postcards in the gift shop showing the frescoes, and I also found them on the internet.

The artist, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, painted scenes showing the effects of good and bad government, as well. It is believed the paintings were intended to remind the city magistrates of their responsibilities.

The Allegory of Good Government

It’s hard to see all the detail in this painting. It’s the size of a wall in real life. The man on the throne is surrounded by the six v

Virtues, including Peace, in a white dress, relaxing because peace has been achieved through good governance. Lady Justice is dressed in red on the left of the painting. In the lower right, wrongdoers have been rounded up by the authorities. Lorenzetti also painted frescoes depicting the effects of good and bad government.

Here is The Allegory of Bad Government. A devilish dictator has set the Vices loose, crime is everywhere, and the city is falling into ruin. Not to mention the fresco.

The Allegory of Bad Government

What would you include in a painting showing good or bad government?

In the evening we had tickets to Italian Opera in Siena. It was fun and well-done. It was performed by a soprano and a pianist in a small restored chapel. It was really nice to experience Italian culture without going to yet another museum - and without eating. It was great to have one final chance to chat with Erica and Lynda there before we parted ways.

Today’s color is:

Burnt Sienna