Chiantishire

Admin
Jun 13, 2011
2 min read

Today we had a guided half-day excursion to the Chianti region. Gorgeous!!! First we went to a town called Greve which is almost as beautiful as Figline (but I am very biased so "almost as beautiful as Figline" is pretty high praise). The piazza is actually nicer and the shops around it are amazing (I use that word so much talking about this trip). I can't wait to go back!

A good Tuscan Man for my friends who asked for one:

Giovanni da Verrazzano:

What do culinarians get excited about? Knives! This shop has tons of kitchen stuff made of olive wood. I wish I'd had money to spend in there! I was down to about ten euros by this time (though I would find ten more in a bag pocket when I got home).

We also get very excited about meat and cheese. We've come to the right place!

This is all peccorino like we had at our tasting at Chef Claudio's and it's at about the same three stages of aging. Some of the oldest stuff here has tomatoes or olives on the rind instead of the herbs like what we ate at Claudio's. Next time I'm here I will buy some! I think that you're allowed to bring this home, so I'll even share.

This was a very neat place!

Grappa! No friend of mine!

From Greve we went to Panzano--another gorgeous, ancient town amongst many. Man, I love this country! We started at Dario Cecchini's butcher shop where we were plied with wine and snacks and then we went downstairs to one of his restaurants, Mac Dario.