Petersontravels

During breakfast at the hotel in Salo, they placed this leaf on the plate, and I could swear it was a marijuana leaf.

We departed from our first home base of Salo and headed to the tiny town of Bassano Del Grappa, where we visited the stunningly beautiful villa and winery of Le Vie Angarano!

This winery is run by several sisters, one of which greeted us on arrival.

Here are Giovanna and Carla showing off their treasure.  Sorry to get you with your eyes closed Carla (always take two photos idiot).

They set us up with lunch in the middle of the vineyard.  Spectacular!

The wines were excellent.  I will be buying a couple of these from Tinto wine store in the near future.  The white wine was particularly good, moving up to the best white wine in Italy so far.

According to Giovanna, there are only 14 wineries in the world making this varietal, Vespaiolo, all in this little region of Italy.  I have to say it’s become an instant favorite, ranking right up there with Vermentino, which has been my favorite white varietal for years.  I see a few cases of this wine in my future.

This wine is worthy of aging.  They poured a 2016 and it showed no signs of aging whatsoever.  If anything, it added some nuance.  Nice stuff!  Interesting that they changed the label between 2016 and 2020.  You can also note they changed the name of the winery.

I didn’t get a picture of it, but they also poured a 2015 Cabernet, and I could swear it was from Napa.  Really good wine, and I’m not a Cab drinker!

Everybody is enjoying the lunch.  The weather was perfect!

Kent took me over to show me the grapes that are currently being harvested….the guys were just meters away cutting grape clusters.  These are just beautiful!

Another shot of the stunning villa, which just recently obtained a Unesco designation.

Paul Turina guided us towards the chapel of the villa under the guise of a tour.

What awaited us inside was our own little set of opera songs!  Truly amazing performances!  I was asked not to post them for now, but hopefully I can amend this post later with a few snippets of the music.  It was really quite remarkable being up close to these powerful voices.  My ears are still ringing!

Paul definitely went above and beyond here!  This was such a special part of the trip.  Thanks Paul!

My good friend Chris Stotka turned 53 today.  I don’t think he will ever get a better performance of Happy Birthday than this one!

The winery even presented Chris with a cake.  The dude is living La Vida Loca!

Imagine this being your backyard!  I don’t want to cut the grass though.

We then drove to Solvenia, where we are staying in Nova Gorica at the Dam Hotel.  I can’t exactly explain the name, I may ask the owner, Uros, tonight.  Maybe he was just arguing with his father Rasti when he was trying to come up with the name?

Rasti: “I think you should name it after me.”

Uros: “That’s a bit presumptious.  I’m the one doing all of the work and the cooking!”

Rasti: “Yes, but I brought you into this world you little snot!”

Uros: “I don’t care what we call the Dam Hotel!!!”

We had a casual dinner in the back yard of the hotel.  Uros, the owner and the Chef, has earned a Michelin Star for the hotels restaurant, and it showed in the food.

Allan was pouring wine and trying to explain to me how to say “Thank You” in Slovenian.  He quickly gave up, realizing his efforts were fruitless.

This was such an excellent dish it deserved a photo.  Some homemade pasta in an excellent creamy sauce with white truffles.  Yum!  There was also an egg dish and a scallop dish that were so good they disappeared before I could even think of getting my camera out.

This was just an incredibly great day!  Tinto Travels is killing it!

 

 

 

 

Today’s wine excusion was again via boat. We headed north on Lake Garda, which is quite a bit larger than I anticipated. I think this lake may be larger than Lake Tahoe! We hugged the western coast, and the little villages are incredibly beautiful.

Here is Chris and T when we were pulling away from the dock. They had Chardonnay for breakfast, so they are in good spirits! (see what I did there?)

The boat driver pointed out Mussolini’s house in Gargnano, as this was his final home in the waning days of WWII. On Hitler’s instructions he set up his home here and ran the “Republic of Salo” for 600 days, until his untimely removal and death by hanging in the nearby town of Giulino. He was executed just two days before Hilter committed suicide. Hitler was such a pussy.

It is now a high end hotel with a Michelin star restaurant. We will have to stay here next time we come back!

Here is a shot of the entire group! Let’s see….from left to right, Kent, Kelly, Peter, Betty, Eric, Karmenn, Shriti, Eric, Gail, Tony, Paul, Carty, Doug, Michelle, Chris, T, Kim, Chris (wearing the “Don’t Blame Me, I Didn’t Vote for Biden” shirt), Aditi, Nina, Mike Mike Mike (said three times fast), and Stephanie. Whew!

Paul looking quite manly in his pose on the bow!

This is Eric and Shriti (Eric is a spitting image of Shaggy from Scooby Doo!). I saw him signing several autographs for kids, so they must get that cartoon here! His pockets were also filled with Scooby Snacks. Go figure!

Eric and Karmenn are so happy to not be in Seattle!

Paul is holding court. I told you this guy likes to talk! It’s all good though, he knows his Italian wine stuff. I wish I had a tenth of his knowledge in this area!

The area of the lake towards the north becomes somewhat of a fijord, but you can only go all the way up via sailboat. We will have to check this part of the lake out next time, after we stay at Mussolini’s house.

We pulled into the little town of Torre for lunch. We had another Trebbiano that was really excellent. Love these wines!

The red was pretty good as well, reminded me of a French Boujoulais…very light and ready to drink young.

The Virginia ladies on the stern. Chris Stotka would refer to this part of the boat as the “back end of this here floaty thingy”. Sigh.

Eric Hanson is doing his best impression of Beavis and Butthead here. The only thing missing is the Metallica t-shirt.

Some people decided to go swimming. We were all set for it, but it hadn’t been a full hour since I ate, and I know my long deceased mother would have been peeved if I had gone in (she would have invaded my dreams for sure). True story, my mother wouldn’t let me run in the sprinklers in the front yard until a full hour after I had eaten. I haven’t drowned in grass to this day, so that was excellent advice!

Heading back into Salo.

Approaching the dock. I can’t wait for dinner at 6:00. Supposed to be wine and pizza! Paul appears to be advising Mike Mike Mike about the size of something important? Well ok then…

The bus picked us up and drove us to the Turina winery. There we met with Marta and Marco Turina.

Marco is truly a cool dude. Love his wine!

They walked us into the vineyards and explained the process behind their winemaking style. Marta is obviously the more outspoken one, but Marco is the winemaker, and his skills were clearly evident in the finished product! Here is Marta in the vineyard.

The Turina kids (they are younger than me, so they are kids) brought in a pizza truck…excellent food to pair with their wines!

They had all of these tables on top of wine barrels. We felt like little kids since the tables were so high. You can see Tony and Gail on the left have doubled up on chairs. Cheaters!!

Marta is explaining the nuances of yet another wine. I can safely say all of the wines from Turina were excellent. I look forward to ordering some from Peter and Nina’s wine store in Virginia in the near future.

Tomorrow we tour to Slovenia. I hope they let us in!