Trip to Italy Day 5 & 6 – Supper At Osteria il Re Gallo And A Four Stop Wine Tour

When we flew to Italy on Sun, Kathy’s fiancée, Keith couldn’t make the trip due to an unknown visa issue so he drove to Minneapolis for an 8am Monday appt. with the immigration folks to get his new passport at 3pm.  He then drove back to Nebraska and caught a Wednesday flight that got him into Rome around 8am on Thu. which was followed by a bus ride for us to pick him up in Siena around 2pm to begin his vacation with us. 

That morning, Kathy went to the store and made a stop at the café next door (Bar Italia) for a cappuccino.

Since we didn’t have our normal event with lunch planned to this day, we went out for supper to Osteria il Re Gallo in downtown Castellina and we were fortunate that they had a table for four without a reservation – the restaurant opened for supper at 7:30pm.  This is restaurant entrance along with the old castle and church on the square.

There is no table turnover here as it is yours for the evening to enjoy a long leisurely meal with several possible courses.  

We began with appetizers of a cheese board and beef tartare.

Then we skipped the pasta course and went directly to our main courses of guinea hen thighs for Kathy, duck breast for Beverly, suckling pig for Keith, and wild boar stew for me.

Apparently, the wild boar are quite a nuisance problem here in Tuscany.

We washed the food down with this.

It was a great meal and we left stuffed.

The next day we went on an all day wine tasting tour beginning at 8:45am with Dario as our tour guide whose business is Wine Tour In Tuscany and is owned by his mother.

Since we went first to very small wineries and did the tasing in the owners home, we were asked not to take pics but we did get this one at our first stop – Campocorto – which is owned by Marco and his son Marcello.  Their wine was good and we bought a couple bottles of our favorite.  Here we are with them and tour guide Dario in the back.

From there we went to another small winery named Vallone diCecione where owner and wine maker Francesco is doing his own thing wine-wise and was the only one to serve us a rose (dry), of which we bought six bottles.  I’m having some of it chilled as I type this.

Then we went to Azienda Agricola Felciano where the owner and wine maker, Stefano, made the most unique Chianti Classico that we had tasted and we all loved it so we bought some to drink here and some to ship home. 

He had a wine barrel cut in half for us to see and they cost about $800 and last for six years if I remember correctly.

After this tasting we stopped in a small village for a very special lunch at some folks home where were served homemade orecchiette, salad from the man’s garden, a pork and beef stew, and tiramisu and it was all unbelievably delicious.  Of course, there was wine and water to drink. I only got a pic of the pasta.

Our last winery stop was at Frattorio Montecchio which is a medium sized winery, 50k to 200k bottles per year, complete with a large staff and tasting room that was accommodating a tour bus while we were there.  This is the outside to that building.  The estate began long ago as a hunting lodge then the owner decided to go into the farming business as well (1700’s I think).

Kathy shipped some products home but Bev and I didn’t buy anything at this stop as we only wanted to buy from the small family owned wineries whose wine was just as good or better.  Each wine tasting included a meat and cheese board so we were pretty full by the end of the tour.

Our tour guide did a super job so it was a great day and just what we came here to do. 

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

4/17-18/25 event dates