The Heart of Chianti!

With our three nights in Gargonza done, it was time to travel to our next Tuscan locale, the land of Chianti!

We left Gargonza on Tuesday morning and undertook a meandering drive to Castello di Tornano with stops at two wineries, a gourmet food store and a giant welcoming rooster (the Chianti symbol) on the way, finally arriving at the hotel around 4pm.

Dinner at the hotel was quite good but very expensive (mixed grill for one being 18 euros with no steak versus mixed grill for to at Osteria Cacciatore being 20 euros with steak!). Over dinner, we struck up a conversation with an English couple (Simon and Eileen) at the adjacent table and we ended up hanging out with them until the wee hours. Sadly, it was their last night at Tornano soother than a brief sighting at breakfast the next morning we did not see them again.

The next day we opted for a trip to Siena, a town we had last visited in 2007 (we tried to visit in 2010 but the traffic scared us off) with a stop at the lovely Monte Chiaro winery on the way (where we purchased two bottles of Chianti Reserva).

We wandered the hot, tourist filled streets of Siena for about 2 1/2 hours, stopping for overpriced (13 euro) bruschetta (at a tourist place near the town center) and reasonably priced ( 7 euro) salad (at a local place on the way out of town) and while we enjoyed seeing Siena again we both agreed that the Italian countryside and smaller towns are more our thing now.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Dievole winery, where we had stayed in 2010, and noted the massive changes that had taken place. When we had last visited Dievole it was a family run operation and had a quaint rural charm about it. Now Dievole is a much larger operation, with five separate wine producing estates in the region, and it no longer has the feel of a family run business but part of a foreign owned business concern.

The wine store was overrun with loud, obnoxious American tourists who monopolized the time of the attendants and we felt somewhat ignored at first but fortunately we managed to get the attention of an employee who helped us purchase a bottle of their top shelf Chianti.

When we returned to Canada, Christos noted that Dievole was now available in the LCBO, confirming our opinion that it is now a larger business concern. Ah well, the wine is still quite good even if the atmosphere is not the same!

That evening we dined out at the nearby "Ristorante Malborghetto", which was quite good, and then returned to the castle for some fun with the castle walls and lighting before retiring for the evening.

Our final day in Chianti was filled with several winery visits and a hike along the lovely Elsa river (the Sentier Elsa trail) near Siena.

The hike was wonderful and only ended when it started raining (trust our luck that it rains in Tuscany when we are 45 minutes hike from the car!). The trail is a secluded path that criss crosses the river and seems popular with the Italians but relatively unknown to tourists. The water along the trail is an amazing aquamarine hue!

After the hike we visited "Il Castagno" where the fiery red headed sommelier named Chronos gave us advice on Brunello wineries to visit (our next stop being Montalcino) and suggested a visit to Brancaia in Chianti. After purchasing two bottles of Chianti we took him up on his suggestion and took the long and windy road to Brancaia where we purchased more wine and some prodotti tipici!

We finally made it back to the hotel in the late afternoon and opted for dinner once more at the castle as we were a bit tired from our day of touring. After a good dinner it was time to rest with dreams of Brunellos to come dancing in our heads!