Wine, glorious wine.....

Having waffled on about Italian food for a whole post, i guess it would be entirely appropriate for me to now spend a few moments to dwell on the alcohol side of things. And why not. Given that Italy is pretty much as renowned for its wine as much as its food. Also, one of the conference excursions yesterday was a trip to a local winery for some tasting. The winery itself was pretty small, at least in terms of production, though they had 170 hectares of land. They produced four wines - one red, two white and a sparkling white, as well as a dessert wine and, of course, grappa - an Italian liquor that is distilled from the skins, stems and mush of the grapes left over from the wine making. It's quite potent. A couple of the PIs at the conference indulged in a little too much on one night and were missing (presumed hungover) for most of the morning session the next day.

The wine itself at the winery was not bad - the red was a little thinner than some of the more robust californian wines that i tend to have back in Charleston - although was still nicely flavoured. The dry white was fantastic, whereas the sweeter chardonnay was a bit more of an acquired taste. The dessert wine was amazing - very easy to drink - and the grappa pretty much blew your head of. So was well up to snuff. The major concern i had after the afternoon of tasting, was the fact that the measures served were generous to say the least. Suffice to say, when we got back, i had to go lie down for twenty minutes and drink a fair amount of water to stop myself from developing a mother of a headache. So all in all, a good afternoon all round! Added to that, some of the local olive oil and farm-baked bread, and it was an Italian experience all round. Bene!!