Field Research

Peggy here. What a day in Tuscany. Rosemary said (and I paraphrase) just the other day said that our wine knowledge could only be furthered by field research. We wound up today with a visit to a winery, purchasing a bottle of two-steps-up-from table wine and a dessert wine that I slugged down perhaps a little too hastily. We found the winery by signery; it was a modest former seminary. We had stopped just moments before at a fancier looking former castle-y looking place where two individuals were swilling and spitting and talking loudly about the wines and into some sort of opinion competition…I ran screaming from the place. It’s not that I don’t enjoy pretentiousness, but I like it better when the topic is something I know, and I don’t know wine.

Around every corner is a castle. They sit on hills and are impressive and protective and if you enter you occasionally find a sign that says “souvenir”. But more than likely you find old old buildings and a plaza, with a cathedral or castle door straight ahead and a fountain in the middle. The last one we visited today had a courtyard and was exactly what I imagined when a teenager and reading novels set in medieval times when men rode off to war and tried not to freeze to death and women rode off to childbirth and tried not to freeze to death. Not much happened in the courtyard until the guys came home with dead boar strapped to their horses and found beautiful women who were mere girls when they left. A lot happened in those courtyards. Read the books.

We found the village at Chianti and the leather good stores that goes with it. I made my first major purchase: a beautiful leather backpack that is roomy and lightweight. I am committed to the backpack because it balances and thought I’d never find one that I could stand in Seattle and now I don’t have to look. Kathy has a new wallet. This is the place to buy leather goods. I don’t know where they’re buying those boots, however. I’ll figure it out.

Tomorrow morning I have a private yoga session at our villa. It’s been 10 days since my last yoga class and I’m certainly feeling the need. What a beautiful setting for yoga. I’m not sure if the yoga instructor will know English but I can follow a yoga class like nobody’s business.

Kathy is in love with the Italian language. She carries around a translation guide. Rosemary speaks Italian now and saves us on an hourly basis. “Most letters get pronounced,” Rosemary says. I am not struggling with the language but am struggling on occasion with the cobblestone.

That’s it for Tuesday. We’re headed to Voltarra tomorrow. Kathy is excited about the alabaster turning. I’m excited about the yoga and the dessert wine. Rosemary is having a wonderful time and just showed us a knock-your-socks-off pictorial that she’s put together.