{"id":247,"date":"2016-04-30T20:42:15","date_gmt":"2016-04-30T20:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=247"},"modified":"2016-04-30T20:42:15","modified_gmt":"2016-04-30T20:42:15","slug":"montalcino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=247","title":{"rendered":"Montalcino"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everybody knows the wine from Montalcino.\u00a0 It\u2019s Brunello, pure Sangiovese, always grown in the authorized confines of this small village in Tuscany.\u00a0 Its earliest appearance was at the Tenuta Greppo, home of the Biondi Santi family.\u00a0 The house still stands in the outskirts of Montalcino and so do their wines.<\/p>\n

You approach the village up a winding road, just off a two-lane \u201chighway\u201d and somewhat further from a real autostrada<\/em>.\u00a0 As you approach Montalcino, you\u2019ll see plenty of inviting villas where you can stop for a degustazione<\/em> of that winery\u2019s production.\u00a0 No one would blame you if you only travelled to Montalcino for wine tasting, but you\u2019d be missing out on a very charming corner of Italy if you didn\u2019t carry on into the town.<\/p>\n

We have to admit that parking is a bit of a problem.\u00a0 If it\u2019s a cold, rainy day in December you might find a place to park right by the town walls, but on a beautiful day at harvest time, you must park quite far down the hill and walk.\u00a0 It\u2019s a pleasant stroll, albeit with a lot of climbing up and down the narrow streets of the village.<\/p>\n

Among the major attractions of Montalcino, much as you might imagine, are the wine shops and restaurants.\u00a0\u00a0 We had been advised to dine at Il Grapplo Blu and warned that it would be very difficult to find.\u00a0 Naturally enough, it was the first taverna<\/em> we came upon and so were way too early for lunch.\u00a0 Il Grapplo Blu has no view over the valley, so we went looking for another place that did.\u00a0 Even in mid-September, the indoor temperatures were so hot that we passed these up and went back to where we had been recommended and had a memorable meal.<\/p>\n

On another occasion, we chose to sit outside in one of the two main piazzas, this one right in front of the village\u2019s major church.\u00a0 It was called Bacchus, understandably.\u00a0 A selection of local dried hams and sausages there is well worth a try.\u00a0 Of course, in both restaurants, we had to order a bottle of Brunello.\u00a0 This can be a mighty expensive wine, but most wine lists have relatively affordable bottles to choose from.\u00a0 Now, knowing the names of all those Brunellos is quite another matter, but we were quite satisfied with our choices.<\/p>\n

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All around Montalcino you\u2019ll find wine stores offering tastings, usually for a fee and always from the producers that shop represents.\u00a0 We chose to save our tasting time for the wineries themselves but others we know have whiled away their afternoons on the piazza in front of the stores.<\/p>\n

Like all destinations favored by tourists, Montalcino has its souvenir stores and gimcracks aplenty.\u00a0 But it also has many little boutiques with fashionable clothes and more exquisite (and expensive) handicrafts.\u00a0 They provide something to do other than eat, drink and mellow out under an umbrella in a piazza.<\/p>\n

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Perhaps Montalcino\u2019s greatest treat (other than the Brunello) is the views you can have from around the exterior of the town.\u00a0 You\u2019ll find your heart in your throat and your camera in your hand, for sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everybody knows the wine from Montalcino.\u00a0 It\u2019s Brunello, pure Sangiovese, always grown in the authorized confines of this small village in Tuscany.\u00a0 Its earliest appearance was at the Tenuta Greppo, home of the Biondi Santi family.\u00a0 The house still stands in the outskirts of Montalcino and so do their wines. You approach the village up … Continue reading Montalcino<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":250,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions\/250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}