Giriamo a Valpolicella

September 19, 2018

Mom, Kati, and Witten at Madonna della Corona

Valpolicella makes five different wines from four different grapes. The grapes varieties are: Corvina, Veronese, Rondinella, and Molinara. The five types of wine are: Valpolicella Classico, Valpolicella Superiore, Valpolicella Ripasso, Amarone, and Recioto. Each of these types of wines is tightly controlled and regulated. Valpolicella Classico is made from grapes grown in the original Valpolicella production zone. Valpolicella Superiore must be aged for at least one year and must have an alcohol content of at least 12%. Amarone is made from partially dried grapes, and must be composed of certain ranges of percentages of Corvina, Rodinella, and other approved red grape varieties. The word “Amarone” means “the great bitter” in Italian, and was initially used to distinguish it from Recioto, which is its sweeter cousin. Ripasso is Valpolicella Superiore that is passed over the partially dried skins left over from fermenting Amarone and Recioto.

The first item on our itinerary for the day was to hike up to Il Sanctuario di Madonna della Corona, which was built into the mountainside and can be reached by climbing approximately 1,500 stairs from Brentino Belluno. Everyone but me nixed the plan to hike up those stairs while we were at breakfast, but agreed to dropping me off at the bottom of the stairs and then driving up closer to the top, so we could meet up at the church. Fate, however, stepped in because I couldn’t find the bottom of the stairs to save my life. Thus, we decided to all drive up the mountain to Spiazzi and make the 20 minute walk down to the church together. The roads were treacherous, but there were dozens and dozens of bikers going up the mountain with us! It was a stunning drive and we arrived in Spiazzi around 11:00 a.m. The stairs up are used as a pilgrimage and are adorned with bronze renditions of the stations of the cross. We were privileged enough to see stations 8-15. As I told Kati, the stations of the cross don’t often do anything for me, but seeing them on this cliff side, in bronze scenes was incredibly moving. Interestingly, there was some lady on the walk down to the church that raised alpacas and was selling scarves and other garments made from their fur.

The Holy Steps

Madonna della Corona did not disappoint! It’s absolutely on my list of top ten churches I’ve been to in amazing locations - right up there with the Ostrog Monastery in Montenegro and the Rila Monastery in Bulgaria. It was truly stunning. There was a small church built right into the rocks, lined with confessional booths that overlooked the vase expanse below. To the side of that church was a stairway of 28 short, marble stairs that were designed for the devout to climb on their knees while contemplating the suffering of Christ and flagellating themselves (seriously). At the top of those stairs was another great little chapel with some stunning stained glass windows. And that wasn’t even the main church! There aren’t words sufficient to describe this place and its setting. If it was intended to be a location to instill faith in the faithless, it certainly accomplished its goal!

After spending a little over an hour at the sanctuary, we loaded back up into the car and started our descent to Fumane for lunch. The location that I had picked out - Enoteca della Valpolicella - is renowned for its food, and for having a wine list of over 700 different wines! It was quite a lunch. My mom and Kati started with plates of ricotta-stuffed zucchini flowers, while my dad had a sampler plate of salami, and I opened the meal with an amazing beef tartare, all of which we paired with a nice Valpolicella Superiore. Kati and I both got tortellini with duck, squab, and guinea fowl. My dad had the same, but with porcini mushrooms instead of birds, and my mom got some really lovely ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese and white mountain spinach. Those dishes were paired with a really outstanding Ripasso from a local biodynamic winery in Fumane. After trying that wine, that winery became our next stop.

Azienda Valentina Cubi was only a mile from the Enoteca. It is a very small family owned estate that is organic certified. We had actually eaten lunch right next to one of the ladies who worked at the winery, which was pretty neat. She was entertaining their danish distributors. Despite not having a reservation, we got a tour of the winery and tasted five of their wines, plus a bonus because we had already tried their Ripasso at lunch. The Classico was good and the Superiore was excellent. We also got to try two of their Amarone - one from 2007, right before they became organic certified, and the second from the first year after they became certified. I liked the older one, but Kati preferred the crunchy organic one. Their Recioto, which I had never had before, was also phenomenal. The last wine that we tried was a weird one, a mix of Sangiovese and the typical Valpolicella grapes. None of us particularly cared for it. The others, though, provided a wonderful slate of wines to represent the region. We also got to hang out with the vintner and owner of the winery, which was really cool. I asked her for some recommendations that we could go to next, and got a varied list that spanned the entirety of Valpolicella. We picked out a close one that she highly recommended as a small, but outstanding producer.

Tenute Ugolini Estate

Finding Monteleone was challenging, and ultimately unfruitful. The gate was closed, but my mom and Kati walked up and eventually got to speak with the owner, who said that they were open, that they did do tastings, but that she had somewhere else that she needed to be that afternoon, so she couldn’t accommodate us. Alas, we decided to go to another winery that the Enoteca had recommended and that was on the drive back to our hotel - Tenute Ugolini. I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a more gorgeous estate in my life. It’s another small, family-owned winery. They have five vineyards spread across Valpolicella, each of which is devoted to making one of the region’s famous wines. The lady working at the winery was initially terse and cold, but warmed up quickly and gave us a really wonderful tour of the family’s home (which is also the base for their operations). We had a table right on the veranda overlooking the vineyards and the rows of cypress trees lining the gravel drive up, and got to taste all of their wines, except for the Recioto, which they was unfortunately out of stock.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing around Ca’ dei Maghi and sipping wine. Witten hadn’t taken a nap, and refused to take one when we got back, so Kati and I decided to put her down early. Luckily, the outside patio for the restaurant was within range for our baby monitor, so we just set it up on the dinner table and had a pleasant, baby-free meal, coupled with a bottle of Ca’ dei Maghi’s Amarone.

Il Nostro Viaggio a Valpolicella

September 18, 2018

View from the Tower of Scaligiari Castle in Sirmione

Today was another travel day . . . and a different kind of travel day at that because it also marked the beginning of our tour into the Italian countryside and mountains.

Our taxi ride from our hotel to the Florence airport turned into quite an experience. It was the first day of school in Florence, so the roads were clogged to begin with. Our driver tried to circumvent traffic by taking some back alleys and roads only to find that one of them was unexpectedly closed because Ryan Reynolds was shooting Six Underground (a new Netflix movie). There were several cars in front of us and, after an extended exchange between our driver and the other drivers, who had gotten out of their cars, we ended up backing up about six blocks because that was the only way out of the pickle that we had found ourselves in. Seeing a line of cars backing up out of a narrow alleyway flanked by brick walls from the 1500s was hilarious, as were the exchanges between all of the drivers and people on the street who were pissed off that the movie was being filmed without any notice or road closings. We finally got to the airport, where we picked up our rental car - a large, nine-person Volkswagen van. It took an exorbitant amount of time to get through the rental process, but, on the bright side, I learned that they were reimbursing me for the absurd international one-way fee they charged me for picking up the van in Florence and dropping it off in Munich. Apparently, they found a German van that needed to go back over the border, so I ended up doing them a favor to the tune of several hundred dollars! After about an hour, we were finally off and out of Florence.

The next leg of our Italian adventure is based in Veneto, of which Venice is the capital. We are not, however, spending any time in Venice itself. Rather, we’re focusing our travels in the area north of Verona, with Valpolicella as our final destination.

Driving through the Tuscan countryside was nice. Emilia-Romagna, not so much. As my mom aptly noted, it looked a whole lot like Indiana - flat, farmland, with little there. To be sure, there are some incredible parts of Emilia-Romagna, we just weren’t driving through any of them. We passed Bologna, which my Italian professor taught me was famous for the three T’s - torte, torre, e tette (torts, towers, and tits). We also passed Modena, which is home to the best restaurant in the world (Osteria Francescana).

Before heading into wine country, we made a pit stop at Sirmione, which is actually in Lombardy, not Veneto. It’s an ancient town located on the Sirmio peninsula, which divides the lower portion of Lake Garda. The first people settled in Sirmione around 600 B.C., and it became a hotspot for the Veronese aristocrats as early as 100 B.C. In fact, it has been famously praised by Catullus, who frequented the area. Between 300 and 400 A.D., the Romans fortified the city to defend the southern shore of Lake Garda. It existed as a free commune until the 13th century when the Scaligeri family took control of it. It was the Scaligeri that fortified the peninsula, building a castle and making sure that the only way to access the Sirmio peninsula was to cross one of two drawbridges through the fortified walls. The Castello Scaligeri also stands as one of the rare examples of a fortified harbor. Part of the castle extends into the lake so that the Scaligeri could safely maintain part of their fleet within the castle walls and provided defenses against invaders and locals. Sirmione definitely lived up to my expectations. The little town could not be more picturesque, particularly in light of the amazing castle. I could have spent a few weeks there, and was very disappointed that we were only able to stop in for lunch and a quick look around.

View From Our Hotel Room in Fumane

From Sirmione we drove into Valpolicella, which is on our itinerary because it’s one of my mom’s favorite wine regions in the world. The only region of Italy that produces more DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata) wines that Valpolicella is Chianti. We arrived at Ca’ dei Maghi, our winery/vineyard/hotel around 5:30 p.m. It’s located on the hillside overlooking Fumane, and offers an outstanding view of the region and the vineyards that stretch for miles. After the three-hour drive from Florence, we decided to take it easy in the afternoon. Kati, Witten, and I took a dip in the pool (which was ice cold) while my parents enjoyed some wine on the patio. Then, we settled in for dinner.

Our dinner was phenomenal. We started with some eggplant rolled with ricotta cheese and topped with a local tomato sauce, as well as plates of local cheeses and meats. Kati and I both got some tagliatelle with duck ragu, followed by some excellent panna cotta - Kati’s with chocolate and mine with fruit. It was an excellent introduction to Valpolicella.