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.

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.