Castello Banfi Tour Day 8
Florence, Italy
April 20, 2011
We were lucky to be so on edge about having no transportation to Montalcino, Tuscany because our downloaded APP for an alarm on our laptop did not go off, but our anxiety did the trick and got us out of bed bright and early to start our car hunt! Out the door and toward the train station we headed with crossed fingers. Our fellow restaurant owners from last night had given us a small hopeful list of car rental spots and dealerships, but the idea that excited us most was renting a Smartcar so we headed to “Elp” where they rent out the cute miniature vehicles, hopefully for less than the $350 the driving service wanted to charge us for the day trip to Tuscany.
The stars were aligned and soon we were comfortably loaded into a tiny car that would literally fit into our master bathtub! The Smartcar was equipped with a little TomTom navigator that would soon become our best buddy and the leg room was phenomenal! We were immediately in love with this little car… but still wary of its durability on the highways and the long drive into the heart of Tuscany. Thanks to TomTom and AJ’s brave driving we somehow made it through the madhouse that is Florence traffic and onto the Highway. The city center does not allow regular car traffic and the term “defensive driving” does not exist in Italy. This combination makes for a bumper to bumper herd of cars weaving around each other and trying not to hit all the random motorcyclists and pedestrians along the way… ahhhhh the serenity of a Tuscan highway!
As we entered the designated geographical area of Montalcino, we pointed out a particular castle up on one of the hills, among several castles upon several hills, hoping the coolest looking one was our destination. As we wound up on the hill of Castello Banfi we were delighted that today’s wine tour would indeed be of the Fairytail castle we pointed out from below. Once the tour started though, we were shocked to be touring a state of the art, uber-modern factory that looked as though it may have been commissioned by Willy Wonka! At the base of the vinyards, below the Cinderalla Castle is where the wine is produced.
The production factory was completed in 2002 with over 30,000 square meters of space. The most interesting part of the factory was the gigantic tanks specially made of both French Oak and Steel. These one of a kind tanks were of artisanal design to reap all the major benefits of both the French oak and the Steel during the initial aging before the grapes even go to get pressed. The Banfi wine family produces a massive amount of wine, with production sites in New York, Piemonte, and the major one here in Montalcino. They have plots of land throughout the DOC and DOCG regions of Italy in order to produce all the different grapes they need to vint over 25 different kinds of wine, including both blends and varietal labels. The proprietors of Banfi is a family that originally did importing of Italian wines into New York and purchased the Montalcino Castle only in 1978 from several noble families who had lived on the land and had some smaller vineyards and olive trees that had been on the hills of ages. Banfi took this land and expanded the vineyards, added the factory, turned the castle into an Etruscan glass museum, 14 room hotel, restaurant, beautiful wine store, olive oil production site, and a Balsameria where they simmer and age their grape juice in the five required types of wooden barrels to produce Traditional balsamic. It was no surprise when we sat down for our three course tasting lunch that everything on the table was produced by the vineyard. They do it all!
The highlight of lunch was definitely the wine. We laughed at the pricing on the menu which said the food was $45 Euro and the four glasses of wine including Grappa was only an additional $10 Euro for a total of $55 Euro for the pairing. We felt the pricing should have been opposite: the fabulous wine was easily worth $45 and the food didn’t even compare to Chef Nathan’s simplest menus. The wines with lunch progressed from a splendid Chardonnay to a Belnero (80% Sangiovese and 20% Syrah and Cab.), then to a show stopping Brunello, the 100% Sangiovese DOCG of Montalcino that must be aged a minimum of 5 years. This was the youngest possible Brunello being a 2006, but it was full bodied, well rounded and YUMMY!
Our three course lunch in the castle called for an afternoon Siesta. It was not hard to find a dreamlike spot of grass up on the hill where we could kick off our shoes, take in the vista and drift off in our fairytale…..
After our nap, we wandered over to the Osteria (wine tasting room) for our private tasting. As if our four labels at lunch weren’t nearly enough, our friends at Southern Wines & Sprits, the brokers for Banfi wines in Utah, hooked us up for a private tasting of 10 more labels, which ended up being 13 more labels! We progressed from crisp Chardonnay- Sauv. Blanc.-Pinot Grigio blend to a 1995 Brunello, a 16 year aged 100% Sangiovese that smelled and tasted of the best qualities that only perfect aging can add to a wine. This Brunello would retail for about $300! Thank you Banfi Wines, Stacey at Southern Wines & Spirits, and Lisa our personal wine tasting expert for a wine tasting and education we will never forget! We earmarked our favorites from the tasting to see if we can get them in for the June Wine Dinner. We can’t wait to share some of these beauties with you back home!
By the time we were done tasting it was dusk…. About 7:30. As we drove down from the Castello and headed west through Tuscany, a molten red sun set on the Italian horizon before our eyes.
TomTom and our little Smartcar got us back to Florence without any hick-ups. The coolest part was that after driving over 200 miles, our gas gauge for the tiny tank in the Smartcard had barely budged! We in Utah could learn something from the Europeans with our big gas guzzling trucks and SUVs…
We returned to Eddie’s House for dinner to thank the owners there for helping us find a car. We had two mouthwatering pizzas, one with mozzarella, olives and chili oil and the other with prosciutto, porcini, zucchini, carrots and ricotta. We parked our Smartcar in the streets of Florence in a spot that ONLY a Smartcar could squeeze, and walked to the hotel for some shuteye.
Tomorrow we will zip around in our awesome little car and see more of Florence and then head down to Rome. Goodnight all.
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