Trip to a Winery in Tuscany

So this post is a little overdue, but nevertheless will be one of my favorites. Last Wednesday, November 1st, was an Italian holiday which was All Soul's Day. This is typically a day when Italians go to the cemeteries to pay respect to their lost love ones. It goes back to the Catholic holiday.

Since we were off this day, Francesco told me that his friend Stephano was inviting us and a few others to his family's country home in Tuscany. I thought maybe it was just like a nice small house in the countryside but I soon found out that it was in fact a property that his family owned for the family wine company. This winery was in fact started by Stephano's grandfather and is now run by his Uncle. So Francesco, another friend Massimo, my Spanish roommate Yollanda, and I all drove in a car to this place. It was about a 2 hour drive from Rome, and as we got closer to the house Massimo started pointing to all these grape vineyards and said "Look this is all Stephano's". I was amazed at all the land. We then get to the house on the property and it was so big I started referring to it as the estate and not a house. The place had a nice rustic countryside Italian feel to it. Two of my favorite things about it was the 19th century piano and the sit in fireplace/oven. We spent the day just relaxing, drinking all of Stephano's wine (Chardonnay and Chianti), falling asleep, playing pool, walking around the estate (btw I ate it on some damp cobblestone), and eating dinner at a restaurant nearby for dinner. My favorite part of dinner was that we had to buy Stephano's own wine from the restaurant. Isn't that pimp? By the time it was time to sleep I kept on discovering additional hallways of the house. I kept on saying in my head "where does this house end". It almost had that "Shining" creepiness to it. It truly was a good break away from the city. I even got to bring back a bottle of Chianti for Matt and Ellen, who I visited in Germany the following weekend (subject of next post). The pictures from Tuscany can of course be seen on Flickr Here.