Day 6 - Tuesday, October 4 - Pienza and Montalcino Winery tasting

 

Orvieto at sunrise

I got up at 7 and followed the path along the cliffs, circling most of the city in about an hour and getting in 5000 steps before breakfast!

Unfortunately, Anna has a cold this morning and is not coming with us.😞

We left at 9 for a 2-hour drive to the city of Pienza in Tuscany. It a small town with a population only a little over 2000 but seems pretty substantial with the buildings and large church. Its fortune was pre-figured by the birth in  1405 of the man who would become Pope Pius II. When he became pope in 1462, he enjoyed Pienza in the summer and funded the building of a cathedral and much of the town that exists to this day.

Pienza has many shops selling souvenirs and shops selling sausages and cheeses. We encountered many people speaking English. One thing we haven't found is a bakery or general market as we've been looking for bread and crackers. The cathedral is large (of course) but isn't as ornate as many of the others we've seen - the floor is pitching down significantly towards the altar due to ground subsidence.
There are spectacular views of the Tuscan countryside.

From there we went to Casato Prime Donne for our first wine tasting. This winery is notable for being owned by a woman and being completely woman-run. The Rosso di Montalcino and Brunello wines can only be produced in a small region and must follow strict regulations for growing, harvesting and production. The wines must be aged in oak casks and can't be bottled for 2 and 5 years respectively. We had a chance to tour the winery and sample wines followed by a small lunch. Of course there was a chance to buy the wines which were much less expensive than to buy in the US but expensive to ship and too heavy to carry many.

We then went to the Bellaria winery which is a very small winery, currently run primarily by the grandson of the founder. We had a chance to walk out to the vineyard and olive grove before going in for a similar tour, wine tasting and some delicious snacks. People in the group bought several cases of wine to have shipped back to the US. We bought one bottle to as a gift for friends we plan to visit in Bologna on our last day.

Overlooking countryside in Pienza

Cheese shop - mostly Peccorino hard cheeses

Vineyard and olive trees

Winery


Amy and friends

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