I’ve been wanting to write about this for ages.  Not about wine actually being better on the other side of the fence, but the impression that it is.

We take groups to wineries in Tuscany and the surrounding regions several times a week, and once you have done it enough, you can’t help but befriend the winemakers.  The more you talk to them, the more little secrets come out.  Here are a few of them.

Brunello di Montalcino

Perhaps the most coveted wine in Italy.  A very small area surrounding the ancient hill town of Montalcino is designated as The Brunello Zone.  There are a few very well-known wineries here.  The best known is Banfi, and the most elite is arguably Biondi Santi, followed by Casanova di Neri, and perhaps Fattoria dei Barbi.

As you a certain road from Montalcino to Castelnove d’Abate, on your left you will see a vineyard surrounding a breathtaking villa.  Signs on the vineyard read “Greppo”, which indicated that you are in the presence of the ultra-elite vineyard of Biondi Santi.  As you continue, when you reach the edge of their property, there is a small dirt road with a sign pointing to ‘Croce di Mezzo’, and after that, you are immediately in front of Fattoria dei Barbi’s vineyards.

You have probably never heard of Croce di Mezzo before.  It is a small, family run place with low volume, and happens to be sandwiched between two of Montalcino’s most famous vineyards.

Their slopes have the same basic incline.  They get the same sun, and the same water.  They produce Brunello, meaning that they use the same grapes,  They maintain the vineyard in the same way, and harvest during the same week.  Their vinification process is controlled by the Brunello Consortium the same as the others, and they age their wine in virtually identical barrels made of the same wood, from the same forest, for the same period of time.  The barrels have the same age restrictions, and are cleaned on the same schedule.  They are bottled by the same process, and aged for the same period of time in the same conditions.

What is different?  For all intents and purposes, they key differences are the side of the fence the grapes come from, and the label on the bottle…. Oh yeah, and the price.

The better-known wines will cost you up to 1,000% more.  Marketing, Marketing, Marketing.

And Then There is Banfi

We hear it all the time.  BANFI BANFI BANFI.  Yes, they are also in this area (as well as others).  Banfi is like the McDonald’s of Tuscan wine.  They are a very large American Wine Importer that started making their own wine in Italy in the late 70′s.  It is the largest in Italy, and very industrial in nature.  Many know them because they are the largest US importer of Italian wine.  I see them as being more about quantity than quality, and I’ll leave it at that.

The Hatfields and The McCoys

Down the road from Montalcino, there is another ancient hill town called Montepulciano.  They are famous for a wine called Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. They are in fierce competition with Brunello, and many (not all) would argue that their wine is far superior, but are not marketed as well as Brunello, and as such don’t call for such a high price.

One of the things I find interesting is that there was a huge scandal a few years back with some of the major Brunello wineries.  They were mixing in ‘illegal’ grapes in an effort to make it more appealing internationally.  Without getting into details, they were making their wine more like Vino Nobile!

Wine From The Wrong Zip Code

A little south of the areas I just wrote about is another well-known wine region called Orvieto, which is in Umbria.  They are well known for their white Orvieto Classico.  Just south of Orvieto is an invisible border, and a little town called Castiglione in Teverina, and IT is in the region of Lazio… not so well known.

To give you something to compare to, imagine I am a winemaker with a vineyard in Napa Valley California.  Cool… Impressive.  You are probably itching to try my wine.  Now imagine if Napa bordered with Nevada, and you could walk from a Napa Valley vineyard to another one in Some unknown town in Nevada.  If my vineyard happened to technically be in Unknown Town, Nevada, I would be significantly less popular at parties, wouldn’t I?

In fact, some truly fantastic wine comes from Castiglione, but they just aren’t popular at parties because their labels have the wrong town name and the wrong region name.

We visit one of these places on our tours, and I would love to have you try them.  The price is about 1/3 of the others, and I challenge anyone to to tell me which is which.

Calcata is an ancient hilltop village that is about 45 minutes from Soriano, near Rome. What makes this village so special is that in the 1930′s, it was condemned, and became a ghost town. However, in the 60′s hippies and artists began to squat here, and over time it developed into a thriving artist colony of sorts. There are currently about 60 local residents of the village, who have restored it over the years and opened restaurants, cafes, and art galleries.

The town swtill carries with it the vibe that set it on its current path. The art galleries are very non-traditional, the cafes serve mostly vegetarian fare, and the people are without question the modern version of the hippies of the 60′s. In fact, the vive is very similar to that of Sedona, Arizona, except that it has an Italian flavor to it.

As though all of this were not strange enough, Calcata has one more odd claim to fame: The Holy Prepuce of Calcata. That’s right, this is where what the Catholic church believes to have been Jesus’ foreskin reseided for hundreds of years until it was mysteriously stolen in 1983.

Related Links:
New York Times article about Calcata
Slate Magazine Artile “Fore Shame”
Link to the book: An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town

I’m a city boy. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, sheltered from certain realities of life. So when I ate that bacon, I never really considered that a pig grew up, got slaughtered, was cut up and shipped to my local supermarket. To me, the bacon was just bacon. It comes from the supermarket, wrapped in plastic. Of course I knew the process, but I never really had to think of it.

In 1984 I visited Soriano and met Paola. Her parents were ‘play farmers’, meaning they lived in town, dad had a normal job, but since they had this old family farm, they would go down in the afternoon and take care of the garden.

One day I visited the ‘old family farm’. It consisted of a bunch of land, an 18th century farmhouse that was in practical ruin (now our restored villa), a garden, a fenced off area with chickens running around, and a pig-pen with one very big pig named “Giorgina”.

I honestly think that may have been the first time I had seen a pig in real life. She was both cute and disgusting. I stayed for a bit to take it all in, then left. That was that.

Fast forward a year later. I had gone back to the states and had returned to Soriano. Paola and I were now engaged to be married. I was at the house one night for dinner, and Paola’s mom had cut some prosciutto. It was unusually good. I mean it, it was truly amazing. I ate it and asked for more, then more again. I raved about how good it was. Then someone told me I was eating Giorgina.

At first I just stopped eating. I had trouble processing it. Yeah, Prosciutto is pig… I know. But how do I eat a pig that I had been introduced to? I mean really! She had a name! This was a first for me. It was a defining moment in my life… One that lasted about 30 seconds before I decided that she just tasted too good for me to care.

From that day forward, no other prosciutto ever tasted quite as good as Giorgina. Her memory is honored.

We never named a pig again. It was really all left to that until last year. Paola’s parents had both passed away, we restored the villa, and we don’t keep any animals there. But there is a family of farmers across from our house, and they do.

One day a guest of ours and I were walking around and spotted their pig. He jokingly decided to call the pig ‘Ramon Jamon’, and I got the naming on video.

From that day forward, the name stuck, and with each group of guests we would take that walk, and they would invariably meet Ramon. He became a star of sorts. Everyone knew that he was sitting there on death row, so they would visit him, feed him, etc. I got quite a bit of that on camera.

As I write this, our 2009 season is just starting up. We will have many guests back at the villa for the cooking classes, and they will all find a prosciutto on the counter… They will find Ramon in the form of his destiny.

So in Ramon’s honor, I decided put together a tribute to him. A video about the life of a pig we called Ramon.

Our future guests often ask me what our tours are going to be like, and I try to explain the feeling of ‘family’, and how it is so different than anything else out there. Oddly, it is a difficult thing to explain, especially since our future guests are little more than strangers on a phone line at first. But it is without question the number one reason for our success. After all, we get countless of word of mouth bookings. With all that is going on in the current economic meltdown and the fact that the travel industry is suffering so terribly, we aren’t feeling it at all. In fact, we are showing a 56% INCREASE over last year because of it.

So today I think I managed to find the best way to explain that sense of family. Not by explaining what it is like during the tour, but how it has changed our lives after tours. Here it is:

I came back to the US after the 2008 season last October. Four and a half months have passed since. In that time, we have not only stayed in contact with many of our past guests, but have seen them, stayed with them, and partied with them. Here is a rundown:

In late summer, while still in Italy, we went on a cruise (we get vacations, too) with past guests.

In November, a couple of past guests came to Florida. We had a wonderful dinner together.

In December we visited some past guests in Arizona. We stayed at their home for a few days and they had a wonderful party. Attending the party were 2 other past guests of ours, as well as a couple future guests of ours.

While we were in Arizona, we also spent a wonderful evening with yet another 2 past guests.

After the time in Arizona, I went to Los Angeles for some business, and wound up having dinner with yet two more past guests.

We spent New Year’s Eve with past guests (for the second year in a row).

In early January, we spent a week down in Cancun with past guests (the same that we had just spent New Years Eve with in Florida)

Later in January, some past guests came to Orlando and we had a wonderful dinner out with them.

In February I spent a few days up in New York for business. I stayed with past guests. While there, I spent a day with another past guest, and met another two past guests for dinner. All in all, guests from the separate past tours all met one another that day .

I even just went to a baseball game a few days back with some past guests!

To add to all of that, more than 100 of my Facebook friends are past guests, and both Paola and I are constantly e-mailing and talking to past guests. The reason? So many of our past guests are difficult to see as ‘past guests’. They just become friends and family.

That’s why we do what we do the way we do it. It doesn’t feel like work for us. It just feels like we are vacationing with friends… so it turns out that way.

I tried to shoot a good amount of video this year to give me a bunch of material for the blog, so I will have quite a few of the various cities we visited on our tours. Spoleto was a place that we visited fairly often, but I only shot video once while there for a few hours. Unfortunately, it was very early in the season, and I was still getting used to the new camera, so the shaking in this video is pretty obvious.

Additionally, they were setting up for their world-famous jazz festival. That being the case, there is so much I didn’t catch on camera. Spoleto is one of the more beautiful cities in Umbria, but it is best known for its Jazz festival. The city dates back to the fifth century BC, and its vast history can still be seen at every corner. Some of the more interesting sights in Spoleto are the massive 14th century Rocca Albornoziana (The Albornozian Castle), which is full of beautiful frescoes and the 12th century cathedral (Duomo), both of which are shown in the video. Interesting sights in Spoleto that are not shown in the video include: The Ancient Roman theater, the 1st century Ponte Sanguinario (The bloody bridge), Ponte delle Torri (the 13th century aqueduct), the 16th century Palazzo Racani-Anoni, the 14th century Palazzo della Signoria, and much more.

Many of our Culture Discovery Vacations itineraries feature a visit to this magnificent town, but for those that wish to go on their own, it can be found in the Perugia Province of Umbria, Italy; about 15 miles north of Terni, or about 75 miles north of Rome. It is about 30 miles north of our home base, Soriano nel Cimino.

7 months, 17 tours, 56 cooking classes, 144 guests and over 35,000 miles of Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio are behind us.  That was the 2008 season for us at Culture Discovery.  As with last year, after coming back to the US, I have gone into video mode.  Here is the first video I have made since coming back, which essentially sums up the season:

What a wild ride it was.   It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work…. but always very rewarding.  Most of all, we made a ton of new friends and had the opportunity to share something we love with so many new people.

Some new stuff in 2008…

We started the year unexpectedly using our ‘old’ kitchen down at the villa. We had started construction in September 2007 on a new 700 square foot kitchen, where the barn had once stood.  Our old kitchen was too small for us to comfortably do classes for more than 6 people at a time, so the new kitchen was a matter of urgency.  The new kitchen was supposed to be finished in April, but of course, we are in Italy. So in April we had a structure and nothing more.  It wasn’t finished until late July, so we had quite a few groups crowd into the old kitchen for a while.

The new kitchen, which Paola and I designed ourselves, came out even more beautiful than we imagined.  All of the counters are travertine marble, the sink is a solid carved block of travertine, all of the tiles are hand-painted, and the masonry for the separating wall and fireplace came out breathtakingly beautiful.  The large lighting fixtures and our 90-bottle wine rack (which we found ourselves restocking every 2 weeks) were all hand-crafted in iron; and everything was finished by local artisans.  What a pleasure it was to begin using it!

Besides the kitchen, this year we got sick of renting vans, and decided to buy a new one.  We headed to Germany and got a perfect 9-passenger Opel Vivaro that soon became lovingly known as ‘Shultz’.  When we have 8 or fewer people in a week, Shultz is always there to take care of us.

We started the season with five homes for our guests:  La Campana, Vecchio Forno, Ponticello, Chiosco, and Trinita.  By the end of the year, we added two new places, called ‘Caminetto’ and ‘Santa Maria’.  Santa Maria is perfect for our guests that don’t do well with hills, as it is just a few steps from Soriano’s Piazza.  It just went through a complete remodel, and makes for a beautiful place for up to four people.  Caminetto became available in August, so a good number of our 2008 guests had the opportunity to stay here.  It is the largest of the homes we offer, and boasts the largest terrace we have, with an amazing view out toward the Tiber Valley.

2008 also fostered some new relationships in Italy for our future guests.  During the season we began to take guests to a winery and olive mill near Orvieto called Madonna delle Macchie, which has proven to be so popular that we have built it into every week we offer in the future.  Moving into 2009, we will be offering our future guests the ability to actually rent part of the vineyard or olive orchard for their own personal wine and olive oil!

In April we met the incredibly gracious Prince Riccardo Nobile-Vitteleschi in the town of Labro, Umbria.  He lives in the 1,000 year old castle of his ancestors, and has personally taken our guests on tours of his ‘home’.  This has been so popular, that it is a staple for our 2009 itineraries now.

During the year, our travels through Tuscany and Umbria have brought us to new wineries, new monasteries, new restaurants, new towns… all of the more popular ones are in for next year, while the less popular are out.  So as I look at the 2009 calendar, I can honestly say I am VERY excited!

So to those of you reading this that were with us this season:  Thank you so much, it was a blast!  To those of you reading this that are still looking forward to your time with us, know this: I’m looking forward to it as much as you are!  We’re going to have a fantastic time.

With so much uncertainty ahead with the economy, skyrocketing fuel prices, and the drastic drop of the Dollar against the Euro over the past couple years; many people have been concerned about planning travel.  In fact, during the 2008 season, most of Europe has seen a sharp drop in tourism for these very reasons. 

We at Culture Discovery haven’t felt the negative impact. To the contrary, while many in the industry have reported a 60% or more decline in business, we sold out our entire 2008 season.  As the dollar weakened and the economy in the states became less certain, our bookings sharply increased.

Our guests repeatedly tell us that they chose us because we offer so much at such a fair price, because our pricing is all-inclusive, and because we protect our guests from currency fluctuations.  In a nutshell, while travel-related costs have been skyrocketing and the world economies have slowed, we have found a working formula to keep the prices low compared to others and guarantee that our guests will pay the price they are quoted, no matter what.

With that in mind, as our guests experience our little slice of life in Italy, they very often ask us both why and how we are able to afford to do it.  Well, here’s how:

1. All-Inclusive Travel means you can completely budget your vacation

This addresses the WHY question.  We want you to feel comfortable before you come.  When our guests book with us, they know that it is all covered.  When you look at our prices, at first glance they may seem higher than travel on your own or the traditional budget big bus tours, but all of the hidden costs with those are what really get you in the end.  With the big budget bus tours and travel on your own, your initial costs can easily double or triple once you start factoring in food that is not included (our single greatest cost), additional transportation costs, entry fees, ‘optional’ guided tours, etc.

To the contrary, we include everything to the point that you could conceivably spend a week in Italy with Culture Discovery and never pull your wallet out of your pocket.  All the while, you will have an amazing first-class experience in Italy like no other.

2. Location, ownership and direct sales can mean huge savings

This addresses the HOW question. Once our guests have spent a week with us, they really get a sense of everything we offer for the price, and many ask us how we are not losing money at our prices.  It all comes down to our location, ownership and direct sales.

Location is a huge factor.  We are in a border area between Rome, Tuscany and Umbria… extremely close to all of it, but not specifically in any of those places.  Our area is not as touristy as many of the places we go to on excursions, so our home base costs are much lower than they would be if we were based in one of the tourist traps.  The benefits of this are twofold.   This allows us to offer our guests more of a real Italian cultural experience, and we have lower costs that we can pass on to our guests in the form of offering more for less money.

Ownership is another big factor.  We own most of what we offer.  We do not operate as agents for a series of tourism service providers, so we don’t have to tack on profit for the providers.  This allows us to keep costs down and pass it along in the form of lower prices and better service.

The vast majority of our marketing is internet-based, direct to our guest.  We don’t have the massive overhead associated with printing and distributing brochures to travel agents, taking ads out in countless travel magazines, etc.  Furthermore, while we do work with agents, 90% of our guests book directly through us, so commissions are a very small part of our overhead.  Again, this allows us to keep prices much lower while offering much more.

3. Our prices are fixed in your currency.

Suppose you are an American, and last October you had planned a trip to Italy for August on your own or with a company that charges Euros, and you had to pay 90 days before your arrival.  Assume the budget  for your trip will have been 2,100 Euros per person.  In October, you will have figured that the trip would cost around US$2900.  But when May came around and it was time to pay, the dollar had dropped against the Euro, and those 2,100 Euros actually cost you US$3,360.  If you were traveling as a couple, nothing about your trip would have changed and no prices would have necessarily increased, but the cost of your trip just went up almost a thousand dollars.

CultureDiscovery.com protects you against this by offering all-inclusive packages at a fixed price, in your currency.  The price you are quoted the day you book is the price you will pay, period.  If you want to pay in US Dollars, once you have booked and made your deposit, you are locked in at that price in US Dollars, no matter what happens in the currency markets in the following months. If you prefer to pay in Australian Dollars, the price remains as such.  British Pounds are guaranteed in British Pounds, and Euros are guaranteed in Euros.

We’re able to do this because we have operating costs in both Euros and Dollars, plus we have some guests that pay in US dollars, others in Australian dollars, others in Euros, etc.  Doing so causes us to make more money one week and less another, but in the end, it all balances out for us and our guests get greater peace of mind.

For my first video post in a while, I thought I would start with a cool little video compilation made of some of the video I shot during some of the cooking classes we had earlier in the season.  This video concentrates on 3 groups we had in May and June of 2008 — I’m not sure why I didn’t break out the video camera for more groups. 

Featured in this video are:

Mary, Erica, Maka, Sue, Terry, Katie, Mary, Mark, Dave, Cindy, Mike, Peggy, Teresa, Anita, Steve, Jessica, Arlene, Gail, Marisa, Tiziana, Paola, Rita, Carla, and a few more.

The reason for the title (Dances with Mozzarella) will become evident at the end.

CultureDiscovery.com is a proud sponsor of this year’s Jazz Festival in Soriano. We hope you will come and see us! We’ll be filming a great deal of the festival this year in High Definition, as well as conducting numerous interviews.

This is the preliminary schedule for the 2008 Jazz festival in Soriano. Most performances begin around 9:00 PM in Soriano’s main Piazza. Some performances will take place in the City Hall Courtyard. Keep in mind that more events are likely to be added to the schedule as time drawn near. Additionally, performances end at midnight as the Rotezzia Pub in Soriano (Located in Catacombs below the main Piazza) opens up for all-night Jam Sessions.

This year wasn’t my first time seeing the Chestnut Festival, but through the years, I have never made it to the Palio.  

First things first, What on earth is a ‘Palio’ ?  Those who have heard the term generally know of it it in connection with the famous ‘Palio di Siena’, which is a horse race.  But Palio is really  a term that can be used for any kind of competition in Italy.  The word Palio itself refers to a large banner that acts as a trophy for the winner of whatever competition is being held.  In other words, the Palio is the prize, not the contest.

Soriano’s Palio, unlike that of Siena, is not a horse race.  Instead it is a half-day event that is made up of an archery competition and a jousting competition.  It is one of the main events in Soriano nel Cimino’s Sagra delle Castagne (Chestnut Festival).

During the festival, the town divides into 4 ‘contrade’ districts, each with their cavalier and archer that will compete in the Palio.

The contradas are ‘San Giorgio’, ‘Rocca’, ‘Trinita’ and ‘Papacqua’.  This year, San Giorgio swept the competition.  Luckily, Paola’s family belongs to San Giorgio.  Actually, Paola’s father was one of the founders for the festival, and he was the president of the San Giorgio contrada for years.  Still, I lived in the Papacqua district when I lived in Soriano, and our rentals are all in the Rocca district.  That said, I had a 75% chance shot at being connected to victory!

The opening event of the festival is the ‘Blessing of the Cavaliers and Archers’, during which the cavaliers ride (and archers walk) into the main square in a grand procession, accompanied by their districts trumpeters and drummers, all followed by a magnificent parade of villagers in medieval dress.   They take formation in front of the cathedral as a priest blesses the competitors and the opening ceremonies commence.

On the day of the Palio competition itself, thousands of people march down to the fields where the event will be held to cheer for their their respective contradas.

The even begins with a round of archery, followed by a round of jousting for rings.  Naturally, this is 2007, so the cavaliers are not jousting one on one.  Instead, they ride a course that is marked with a series of poles.  Each pole has three rings of different size.  They are scored based on how many rings they get, how big those rings are, and the speed at which they maneuvered the course.

With the second round, the archers take more distance and the cavaliers get a second shot at their remaining rings, again judged by ring count, ring size and speed.

A third and final round puts the archers at a greatly increased distance, and the cavaliers that their last run around the track in an effort for the perfect score.

When it is all done (It lasted about 5 hours), all of the scores are tallied and the contrada with the highest combined score wins this year’s Palio.

From that point forward, the losers go home deflated, while the winners parade all the way back to town for an evening of extreme celebration.

The event is strongly felt in the town.  Emotions run deep.  I watched losers in tears and winners rejoice at their supremacy. 

I have to admit, I started out really not caring, but with all of the tension in the air leading up to the event, I found myself really excited, too. It was truly a blast!