Deja Vino

Does this look familiar?

It turns out that my cooking class field trip to a wine tasting on a farm in Lucca was at the exact same farm that API took us for the olive oil tasting. I now know Fattoria Il Poggio quite well, I think!

Despite some of us from API feeling a little disappointed at not going somewhere new, the fact that we were here this time for a wine tasting did make a considerable difference in our second experience here. New tour guide, new sights...

A pine nut tree! Mmmm - a great addition to salads :)

See those odd-looking spindly stick cluster things? Those are what grow capers (those tiny, salty green balls that pack a wallop of flavor). Also good on salads :)

And of course, there were new tastes!

The white.

Very dry, but I really liked it - so much that a bottle came home with me!

The red.

Once this opened up, I really liked this too. In fact, I couldn't decide which I liked more, the white or the red! Brought a bottle of this home to, so the roomies may offer up their opinions!

The wonderful thing about going to farms is that the wine they produce is always tasty and super cheap. I could so live on a Tuscan farm. The views alone would make it worth it.

The food was equally as delish. And there was plenty to be had! Before the standard wine tasting snacks were brought out (bread, olive oil, cheese, salamis), they served us fresh-made maccheroni pasta in meat sauce:

Now I am not much for meat sauce, but the amazingness that is fresh pasta pretty much balances out everything else. I can't even describe it; it's got the perfect texture and bite to it, and you can taste the how the egg, flour and water combine to produce such a wonderful thing. 

Just a note - you can buy fresh pasta in the States! It's usually in [one of] the freezer sections. If there's a specialty cheese aisle, it may be around there. It's not quite fresh off the slicer, but it's still far and beyond the dried stuff. Or you could get ambitious and make your own...*wink wink*

After this and some bread, delicious olives and pecorino (seriously, best cheese ever. and this is coming from someone who usually doesn't like cheese.), we had the traditional Tuscan dessert of cantuccini (basically little baby almond biscotti) dipped in Vin Santo, a sweet dessert wine:

Last time I mentioned I didn't like their Vin Santo - it's suuuper strong! But today, I actually quite enjoyed my tiny sip. And it is nice with the cantucci. As they say, when in Rome Tuscany!

Despite it pouring down rain for most of the day, it was a really fun field trip. In fact, it's a little unreal to me that I went to a wine tasting on a Tuscan farm for SCHOOL. If this is a dream - don't wake me up!

~Namaste~