April 26 - Like taking Chianti from a baby

We checked out of Hotel Enza and took a somewhat unplanned scenic route around the eastern side of Florence, past the Piazzale Michelangelo park with its panoramic views of the city from on high.

Heading south on country roads about 15 miles south of Florence, we found Poggio-Torselli winery in San Casciano val di Pesa and arrived on time for our appointment for a tour and tasting with Maurizio Santone, the director, who led us around the new winery (first vintage 2002) that has as its centerpiece a 700-year-old villa that Maurizio told us was once home to Machiavelli and his family.

The investors in Poggio-Torselli appear to have spared no expense, either in restoring what was a ruin of a villa or investing in modern equipment, from the stainless steel tanks for the initial fermentation, to the hand-made oak barrels, where the wine is further aged from 18 months to two years before it is ready for bottling.

Our tasting consisted of Chianti Classico '03, Classico Riserva '04 and a Cabernet that proved the most complex (and green) of the three. He explained, with helpfulness and without pretension, the importance of appreciating the color (by tipping the glass away from you), the fragrance (one nostril is best), and why professional wine tasters spit: getting drunk doesn't help your ability to critically evaluate a wine, and as your digestive system processes the non-alcoholic components of the wine, it also alters your objective sense of taste. After a mini-feast of bread, cheese and prosciutto, we decided on six bottles of wine plus a bottle of grappa, an Italian brandy; olive oil and honey, all produced at the winery. The kids got to try the wine, too, although all except Paul admitted they had yet to acquire a taste for the stuff.

As Maurizio prepared the wine-tasting, we were able to wander the formal gardens outside the the villa overlooking the 30-hectare property, a piece of classic Tuscan heaven both God- and man-made, with rows of just-developing grapevines interspersed with rows of olive trees. Maurizio marveled at how fortunate he was to be able to work in the countryside during the day and return to the bustle of his native Florence each evening. And he was humble enough to admit that even though he directs the nurture and harvest of all these magnificent plants, he can't grow anything in his garden at home.