Pacina

You will have to excuse my English, because we now do not speak properly in any language. Our Italian is getting better, but still at the beginner stage, and we speak broken English to each other when we do not know the words in Italian. It is quite amusing. We left Pacina this morning, and headed towards Panzano in Chianti. Stefano and Giovanna, owners of Pacina, met us there yesterday afternoon and we got a tour of the Estate, tasted some wines and the new olive oil, then they showed us to our room. They let us stay in an apartment on the property that overlooked the rolling hills of Chianti. The view was amazing, and the pictures we took do not do it justice. The harvest this year is complete, and now the olives are being picked for Oil, and the 2006 vintage is being bottled, so they are still very busy at the vineyard. The apartment had a kitchen, fireplace, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a heated pool below us, a big upgrade for the hotel room in Siena we stayed at the night before. Once we were settled in, we drove around the town of Castelnuovo Berardenga where we came across Felsina, another popular wine we have at Tomasso and Panzano. We dropped in there and also received a tour of the cellar, the vineyards, and the majority of the porperty. The, of course, more tasting. We tasted everything from the I Sistri white to their Grappa, and everything in between. We did not have an appointment with them, but they were very happy to see us anyway. We decided to stay in for dinner, and utilize the kitchen. We lit a fire and toasted bread for bruschetta over the fire for our antipasto, locally made pasta that we tossed with white anchovies, grape tomatoes, and olive oil, we roasted 2 pork shoulder steaks over the fire and fennel roasted in the oven, afterward we drank way too much wine while tending to the fire, my headache this morning told me so. We had a great time. Today we drove through the windy roads of Tuscany and made it to Panzano for lunch this afternoon. We have a tasting set up at Il Palagio tomorrow morning, then we are heading to Vicchiomaggio in Greve until Saturday. It is difficult to write about everything we are experiencing, but I will stop now because I am rambling, please leave comments if you wish, it's good to hear from everyone, ciao