Today we went on a wine tasting tour in Tuscany. We were so lucky with the weather! It’s been raining every day we’ve been in Florence but today, sunny! And it looks like it’ll be raining again until we go home. So it was the best day to go to Tuscany.
Once again, our short walk to the meeting place for our tour was beside and then over the River Arno. When we got to a spot with some rushing water, Cori turned around and said to me, “I believe it was my photographs!” This is the line Lucy Honeychurch says to George Emerson when he throws her blood-stained photographs in the river. This scene follows the one where George catches Lucy as she faints from seeing a murder by the fountain. He picks up her photographs, then confesses to throwing them in the water as they stand watching the river later.
Click on pictures to see full photo, title, and description. For the 100s of photos we took, see my smugmug: https://moonfamily.smugmug.com/Travel/Italy-2026
Our tour guide drove us to two wineries in Tuscany in a van, along with a nice couple from North Carolina. Randy and I both tried to take pictures on the way, but it was hard to get any good shots through the windows. This is one that turned out all right.
When I see movies about Tuscany, I imagine driving along a similar landscape to wine country in California. The landscape is similar, for sure, but so much more compact. We drove out of the city of Florence immediately into the Tuscany region, with tightly curved and some rough dirt roads, but very compact, everything close to each other.
A Tuscany view
The first winery we went to was built in 1583! During World War II, all the wine production was lost, and the cellar became a bomb shelter, but they had some old, dusty bottles dating back to 1950.
The current owner of the winery took us on a tour. Incredible to think how old this is.
We had a delicious lunch at the second winery, which was fully organic and more modern looking. A young Italian man, a nephew of the winemaker, helped lead the tour because his uncle was at a conference. It was cute to see our tour guide coaching him on what to talk to us about. He sat by Cori during lunch, and he and Cori had a lot of fun talking to each other. As we drove away, our guide said to Cori, “He fell in love with you a little bit.” Cori laughed and said, “My first cougar!”
The couple from North Carolina were delightful, with their soft Southern drawl. Cindy did not usually drink wine. She told our guide, Alessandra, that, if she drank, she drank Moscato. Alessandra said, “With a biscuit or a little bit after dinner? Or what do you drink it with?” Cindy said, “Supper.” Alessandra said, “Oh, do not say this to me!”
I didn’t take a photo, but there was a big bowl of what our guide told us is called “pappa al pomodoro” that was delicious! It looked like a bowl of raw ground beef, so I wondered if it was beef tartare or something. But it has no meat at all. It is tomatoes with a base of onion, garlic, and basil, and mixed with crumbled bread. Our guide told us you use old bread and soak it in water, but the video I linked to below does not soak the bread. It’s fun to watch the Italian woman in the video make it. She says an Italian word I hear a lot and love, “Allora.” Cori said it means “And so…” or “And now...”
The recipes online call it tomato soup, but at our lunch they just put out a big bowl, and we either ate it straight from our plate or put it on bread. It was delicious. The bruschetta they served was also delicious, and they had a dish of zucchini caciatore that I loved, too — and I don’t like zucchini. The recipes online show it sautéed with pine nuts, raisins, and other things, but this was served with the zucchini sliced into thin ribbons, and it was cold. It did not have raisins, but it did have pine nuts and some kind of cheese, parmesan, I think. And of course, virgin olive oil. The whole lunch was delizioso.
It was a wonderful day. Alessandra is an enologist (or oenologist). She said she got a degree and worked for several years in France, then although she had a good job, she moved back to Italy because she missed her family so much. She was very knowledgeable in the chemistry of wines and the history of the grapes, as well as the industry. During lunch, I mentioned that my friends and I had discovered a rosé we loved while we were in France called Whispering Angel. She said, “That is where I worked!”
She made us laugh while she was driving because she was “fighting the car.” She did not like when it would ding or beep at her about her speed or how close she was to something or whatever. She would say, “I know, I know!” She said the car thought it was smarter than her, “but it doesn’t have eyes.” Once she had to brake quickly because a couple was crossing in front of us and she said, “The car did not see them.”
After all that delicious food and wine for lunch, I was not hungry at all. But the North Carolina couple told us about a wonderful steak dinner they had had last night. We took down the name and decided to go. We went at 8 pm, late for us but the Italians eat dinner at more like 8:30 or later.
It is a tradition in Florence to have these enormous T-bone steaks cooked rare. We shared one. They bring it to the table on a scale. Ours weighed 1.5 kilos - 3.5 lbs.! They season it just with salt, pepper, and olive oil. They served it with a tiny dish of flaked salt. We sprinkled that on each piece and it was delicious. Randy especially loved it. He polished it off after Cori and I ate our fill.
A terrific and delectable day!
On the way home, we happened to see a tiny little chapel. It was so ornate and beautiful, a lovely quiet space for meditation and prayer. In the video you hear the traffic, but it was actually very quiet inside, with the music playing softly.
