Our drive from Vicenza to Verona is in the Veneto region, which is one of the foremost producing wine regions in Italy.
I never thought much of Tom-Tom's until we discovered that it provided winery locations. Sure, it had helped us navigate through Italy, find parking, gas stations, our hotels, but WINERIES!!!! Magical!!
Wineries were open on Mondays!
Wineries in Italy are nothing like those in Napa Valley. The prices are very reasonable and apparently they do not get even a fraction of the traffic that Napa gets, if any. At the first winery we stumbled across we were greeted by the barefoot cut-off jeans wearing owner who joined us for a few tastes.
In fact, I am sure this owner was surprised if not confused by my broken linguistic masterpiece question posed using a combination of Italian/Spanish/French/Portuguese ..."Can we taste your wine??"
I am sure he understood, perhaps his puzzled look was because it was before noon.
The landscape was magnificent and we stumbled across several quaint towns and fortresses like this one in Soave.
Through a series of hilly vineyards we followed the strada del vino or "wine road" which featured special road signs providing information on grapes and the wines that they were made into.
The Tom-Tom knows where the wineries are, but the roads to them are often narrow and resembling service roads. Oftentimes we were forced to abandon the mission.
The most appreciated wines in the region come from the provinces of Treviso, Verona, Padova, Venice, and Vicenza. The area around Verona, with its temperate climate and hilly surrounding, is believed to have cultivated grapes since the Bronze Age (I had to look this fact up!).
This day of exploring for me really was one of the highlights of our trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment