The Winery

On Monday, we got a tour of the winery that they run here at the agriturismo. No pictures, because I forgot to bring along the camera for it, but maybe I'll have a chance to take a picture of the exterior before we leave.

The property has been in use as a winery for over 1000 years. There's a tower in the winery building that was built 1000 years ago. Another major part of the building was built a mere 500 years ago, when it was owned by one of the major families of Florence. The rest was built 300 years ago. The family that owns it now has had it since 1911. 85% of what they make is table wine, which only gets aged for a bit more than a year and doesn't get put into the wood casks. The remainder is aged for varying periods of time in wood casks that are made by a French company that they've been ordering from for about 90 years. They're unusual for a winery in Tuscany because they make white wine as well. Apparently, in the 1930s someone in the family developed an allergy to tannins. Rather than stop drinking wine (horrors), the family imported white wine stock from France and added that to the production. They also make the base liquid for grappa and vinegar, but they send it elsewhere for the final steps (e.g. to Modena).

We concluded with a wine tasting. The good wine is extremely good. Amusingly, one of the best wines they made is from French grapes (the horror). We're currently debating whether to ship some bottles back, even though it would cost more to ship than the actual cost of the wine. We'll see... (Update: We went for it, and yes, it cost more to ship than for the wine itself.)