Italy Blog #50: Montepulciano's Underground Winery Tour- and Tom's Quote of the Week

In this 50th blog about our May 2016 trip to Italy, we'll take you on a tour of a winery in the medieval hilltop town

Talosa Winery Cellar

of Montepulciano. We'll even take you into the basement for an historic find. Read through to the end for Tom's "Quote of the Week."

THE TALOSA WINERY- We took the wine tour and had a wonderful guide. His name was Andrea.
Since 1972 the estate has been owned by Angelo Jacorossi. The wine is made from the grapes that cover an area of 32 hectares (79 arces) of vineyards in one of the most beautiful areas of Montepulciano at an altitude of 350-400 meters (.21 to .24 miles high).For the website, visit: www.talosa.it/en/company/.

DOWN INTO THE CELLAR - Andrea too is down into the historical wine cellar first. We learned that it was carved out in the 1500s, out of Etruscan caves. The main barrel-ageing cellar is in the old town center of Montepulciano, in an underground area between two of the oldest buildings in the city: Palazzo Tarugi and Palazzo Sinatti.

Tom , Andrea and Rob

THE WOODEN CASKS - It was there that we saw the massive wooden casks that held the wine. We learned that there were different woods that gave wine different flavors. For example, there were some oak wood from France, and other oak from Croatia.The oak from Croatia gave the wine a lighter taste. 

The vineyard

WHO WERE THE ETRUSCANS?  -  The Etruscan civilization is the modern name given to a powerful, wealthy and refined, though little known civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio. They lived and thrived between 700 B.C. and 4 A.D.

THE HISTORIC FIND - The lowest point of the  wine cellar was actually an Etruscan tomb from 6 A.D.! Andrea said that during World War II when the bombing of Italy occurred, townspeople flocked to the winery cave to hide. It was then that the ancient tomb was uncovered, and they found artifacts from 6 A.D.

WINE TASTING! - After climbing back up the stairs (it was a long stairway) we got to taste 3 different wines. Even I (Rob) tasted all three wines (although I really don't drink- but heck, I still had a sinus infection so it could only help). We sampled 3 house winds at 8 Euro, 16 Euro and 40 Euro. What's interesting is that I liked the cheapest wine. :) 

 TOM'S QUOTE OF THE WEEK - Give Tom a little wine and he is fearless. LOL. So, when we were wine tasting, Tom said to Andrea (the man who was our tour guide), "In the U.S., Andrea is a woman's name. What was wrong with your mother? 
  Fortunately, Andrea knew that Tom was kidding, so we all had a good laugh! 

NEXT: Arrival in Rome!