After learning and tasting Parmesan cheese, it was time for wine. We drove 30 minutes before stopping at…….
Totally loved this stop. With only the three of us and our tour guide, it felt like stopping at a family friend’s place. We walked through some of the nearby vineyards.
Looking at the gnarled vines gave you a feeling for the age and strength of this vineyard. Also, the photo below gives you a glimpse of the Italian countryside.
We got a quick photo – with a nearby castle in the background – before heading to the tasting room.
We started with this wine having a little bit of fizz. Have I mentioned…….I like fizz?
Behind the wine glass (above) you can see some local Parma we enjoyed while we were waiting for these toasted sandwiches with mortadella. I never enjoyed mortadella………until I came to Italy – delicious. I’m now spoiled.
We tried another wine and pork product – very good.
Then our hostess brought out this rose’ – loved it. Yes, it has some fizz. Like a number of Americans, I started drinking wine with White Zinfandel – sorry hubby – a number of years ago. 🙂 Not necessarily the best wine, but they had a great marketing campaign, and we drank.
Along with more meat product – such a hardship.
I haven’t thrown in many flower photos, so here you go. Flowering trees were in bloom during our time in the countryside.
We probably stayed longer than normal, but it was so comfortable we didn’t want to leave. We grabbed a photo of the group before heading out.
What about my duck? Got a quick photo before leaving.
One last stop was on the agenda before heading back to Bologna. Let’s learn about balsamic vinegar.
What is balsamic vinegar? A dark, concentrated, intensely flavoured vinegar originating in Modena, Italy, made wholly or partially from grape must: freshly crushed grape juice with all the skins, seeds and stems. This was a family business as were most in this area.
First stop – vinegar barrels.
As the juice condenses, the liquid was put into smaller barrels. These barrels were mostly composed of oak wood.
Upstairs was another room of smaller barrels, getting closer to the finish line. The wonderful smell of balsamic vinegar was getting stronger. The resulting thick syrup, called mosto cotto in Italian, is subsequently aged for a minimum of 12 years in a battery of several barrels of successively smaller sizes. I mentioned most barrels were made of oak. They had several different wood barrels and let us take a whiff. You could tell a difference in the product as it finishes. The light-colored wood was cherry wood.
Now it was time for the fun part – eating! First up was onion jam prepared with balsamic vinegar, topping ricotta cheese- covered bread. Oh yeah, and some local red wine.
Gelato topped with whipped cream, some nuts and drizzle of balsamic vinegar.
I thought the cookie was going to be our last tidbit.
I was wrong! Our last morsel was a cookie crumble topped with gelato and 25-year balsamic vinegar. O.M.G. Yes, they saved the best for last.
There was absolutely no pressure or expectation to purchase anything from our stops. but hey – how can you leave this without adding something to your bag? We couldn’t!
This was a totally awesome tour – not our norm. There was a maximum of 8 but as you could see (or guess) it was the three of us and the guide.
Ginny
Couldn’t resist throwing in this photo taken at our last stop. Yep, that’s Eric on top of a Lamborghini.
Darden Travels 