Chianti and its wines

I'll be the first to say it - I'm a novice when it comes to wine. To give you an idea of just how clueless I was - the extent of my knowledge before visiting Tuscany was knowing the difference between red and white, sweet and dry.

So, I used my time in the wine region to teach myself to like red wine. And I think I did alright. I can definitely appreciate the flavours, the fullness and tannins a lot more nowadays – and I know a little something about pairing certain types of food with certain types of wine. (Just call me a sommelier already)..

Where to stay
Before we dive deep into the complex world of wine tastings, we’d better start with where to stay. We decided to do three nights in an agriturismo called Casanova di Pescille, about 5 minutes outside San Gimignano. It had an incredible restaurant on site that was a big part of why I picked it. Something appealed to me about coming home after a day exploring, and spending a chill night eating in, then walking the 10 steps to your room and collapsing after a long day.

I also wanted to be situated outside San Gimignano - and it really was a great spot to stay, because it was central to a number of places like Volterra and Siena. The benefit of being just outside town, was that it allowed us to easily park up for the night, as opposed to finding a hotel in the old town, which has restricted parking options.

In saying that, I don’t think the positioning of the agriturismo was as crucial in Chianti, as it was for us in Val D’Orcia. It’s a lot more spread out and if you find an amazing looking agriturismo, then you should go for it.

Top places to visit

• San Gimignano
• Arezzo
• Siena

Wine regions within Chianti
Something I didn’t know before visiting Chianti, is that there are seven “sub zones” within the region. We stuck mostly around the Chianti Colli Senesi region, but for Aussies, the most recognisable region is Chianti Classico. One thing I did learn, is that if you are buying a Chianti in Australia, then make sure you look to see if they specify a region. If they don’t, then we were told it’s likely a blend of all different producers from all the different Chianti regions - something that's called 'super Tuscan' … and the local wine makers say that’s almost as bad as putting cheese on a seafood pasta, for the Italians … or worse, drinking a cappuccino after lunch. Mumma mia!!

Where to begin – well, one sip, one glass at a time, I suppose.
Quick note: the Italian word for cheers is “chin chin”.

Full disclosure – we had no idea where to start or the best way to do tastings. So, we looked online and tried to find places with good reviews. To get down to the thick of it, there’s plenty of ways to try the different types of wines in Tuscany. 1. You can go to a restaurant and just order a glass (or bottle, if that’s what you want). 2. Visit an enoteca that does tastings. They bring you out different wine options and then suggest a pairing for the type of food you’ve ordered. 3. You can go to a place that does a set lunch with tastings (this was excellent, because it took the choice out of it for us novices – and we just soaked up their advice). 4. Visit a farm (probably a highlight – for reasons I’ll explain later – but in a nutshell, it was the one that felt truely authentic).

• Restaurants. This one is self explanatory, so I won’t dwell. But we found that we were able to order more appropriate wines for our food, after visiting the other options. Of course, asking your waiter about what they suggest is also a good place to start.

• Enoteca with tasting – so we actually did this as an option in Montepulciano (I know, it’s not the Chianti region.. but you get the picture.) We picked the place because it looked really good and the staff seemed to know their stuff. The man sat us down, gave us two wine options that he chose for us, then when we ordered our food, he picked a third option based on what we ordered. This Enoteca/wine shop also had ’free shipping’ options (with T&Cs, I’m sure) but we were still learning about the different options at this stage and weren’t ready to choose what we liked, to send copious amounts back to Australia.
• Set menu tasting – We found this place online and it was just five minutes from our agriturismo, called Azienda Agricola Palagetto. We made a booking the morning of, and they sat us down and did a full set menu lunch, that was paired with 5-6 different wines. We started with cold cuts, that they paired with white wines, then moved onto the main, which they paired with their different reds. Finally, we finished with a dessert wine that you dunked your Italian biscuit into. They explained each wine as it came out, what you should expect to taste, and then what food is good to pair it with. We had lunch in their lovely barrel room, so that really added to the atmosphere. It was obviously geared towards tourists, but still a great option.
• Farm tasting – I’m biased, but this was my favourite option by far. We were recommended this place by someone in Australia who had visited it. It was sold to us as a small, family-run winery, where the owner fits in tastings in around his farm work - and that’s exactly what we got. Giorgio runs Il Palagione with his two sons. He was impressed with (and even complimented) my broken Italian and let me stumble through talking to him (so he was already 10/10 in my books). We did the tasting in this tiny front room, and got to try 6 wines for 10 euros. He explained his production, how he loves each of his wines like he would a son, and then why this type of wine is the ”lifeblood” (yes, he used these words) of the region. We didn’t expect to taste/like a white wine in the middle of red wine country.. But this is where we discovered the Vernaccia grape and its history in the region. We liked this experience (and his wines) so much, we ended up shipping six back to Australia.

NOTE: At this point, I should say that not all farms will accept walk ins. Many just sell direct to the local restaurants. But if you call ahead, do a bit of research at places nearby, there’s a few around that do tastings. This is something you can probably do from your hotel room the day (or a couple of days) before. But it mostly depends how lucky you are – and how busy the farmer is. Giorgio had just finished harvesting the grapes when we were there and was a week away from harvesting his olives, to make 'new olive oil', so we got him at a good time. Depending on how organised you like to be, you can book weeks/months in advance with some of the more well-known places – particularly if you’ve got your eye on one place in particular and especially during peak season (in the Summer months).

Shipping Wines
I am FAR from an expert on this subject, and to be completely honest, we probably didn’t do it the cheapest way possible - but at the time, it made sense. There are many different ways/companies to ship back wines, olive oils, balsamic etc – this is just what we did.

At the time we decided to ship our wine back, we had already accumulated three other bottles of wine that we weren’t sure what to do with. So when Giorgio said we could throw in our prepurchased bottles of wine with his, to ship it all back using Mail Boxes Etc, we decided to go for it. It was 95 Euros (shipping only), plus we obviously had to pay for the wine. But one cost we didn't take into consideration was Australian taxes - which aren't cheap. We had to pay 320AUD to get our six wines out of customs, after we got home. That one hurt. But now, every sip will be savoured just that little bit more.

We could have probably found Chianti wine in Australia if we headed to Dan Murphy’s, but we liked the idea of having the wines we tried in Tuscany on our bar cart. So we look at it as an investment.. and we’ve already promised ourselves that we’ll only open the bottles on special occasions.

The other way to do this is just go to one of the Mail Boxes Etc branches – we probably would have done it that way, if the vinyard owner didn’t offer to send them off for us. But the other option we didn’t look into too much at the time, was taking advantage of the ’free shipping’ options certain wine shops were advertising. There were signs at so many Enotecas in Montepulciano all offering just that. It might have been cheaper, if you were happy to buy them all from their shop.