Day 8 – May 27, 2025 – Venice/Conegliano, Italy
We had an early start with a quick breakfast before heading out the door for the train to Conegliano, which is about an hour ride up into prosecco land. You could start seeing vines as we got closer.
We met up with our guide, Carlo, and were joined by four others, two young ladies from Indianapolis and another couple from Moscow. We started off with a coffee stop before being driven to our first stop, which was a beautiful photo op of the hills with all the vines and a church way in the background, then on to our first winery called Nani Rizzi, which is located in Valdobbiadene.
Valdobbiadene is a town and commune in the province of Treviso, Veneto, Italy. Valdobbiadene is a wine growing area: located below the Alpine-Dolomite areas of Veneto, the climate allows the cultivation of the Glera variety of grape. The Conegliano Valdobbiadene area is the home of the best Prosecco, an extra dry sparkling white wine.
Carlo explained the whole process once the grapes are received all the way to end where they’re bottled and packaged. The Glera grape is the grape that is used to make prosecco and must be at least 85% Glera to be considered prosecco. The other 15% can be a variety of others and at Nani Rizzi, they use Verdisio, Perera, and Bianchetta. Prosecco has a double fermentation process – the first process the carbonation is released as it is in tanks with the top open, the second fermentation puts yeast back in and is stored in tanks with a closed dome top so that the carbonation is put back in to make it fizzy.
We had four tastings which consisted of an Extra Brut, Extra, Gran Cuvee Ergi, and Cartizze. Each one gets a little sweeter as there is more sugar content in it, but not sweet like a Muscato or chardonnay. All the wines are DOCG, which is the highest classification for Italian wines. They have strict quality controls and are guaranteed by the government. Mine and John’s favorites were the Extra Brut and the Cartizze so of course we bought some to have shipped back home.
Our next stop was for lunch at Carlo’s in-law’s restaurant, Antica Osteria Di Via Brandolini, where we ate family style and started with bread, prosciutto, eggplant, stuffed tomatoes and a chicken salad that reminded me of a potato salad, which was unusual but very good! The next course was spaghetti Bolognese and then roasted chicken, pork and polenta. They have an actual spit in the restaurant where they cook the meat! We ended the meal with tiramisu, and we all left very full.
Our next stop took us to a private winery, Gli Allori, which is also DOCG, and where we met Matilde, who is at least a third generation owner and she runs it with her two cousins. It was founded I 1919 and is in Collabrigo that is in the hills of Conegliano. They have centuries-old laurel trees on the property, which is the symbol of the company. We tasted four different Proseccos, with one being non-carbonated and had a unique taste, one with some yeast still in the bottle, which allows you to keep it longer, one Brut, and one extra dry. All the wines at this winery are 100% Glera grapes.
The grounds are just gorgeous, and we wish the weather had been nicer, but today was spotted with rain off and on. This was the end of our tour, so we loaded up in the van and Carlo took us quickly to the train station where we just made it in time. He has this down to a science! We had a 45-minute ride back and then headed to the BNB for a few minutes before heading back out again.
We found a neat little osteria (Osteria Al Cicheto) on a back alley not far from our BNB the last time we were here, so we stopped in there for a glass of wine and some cicchetti (small bites). John chose four different ones, and we nibbled on those, which ended up being our dinner after the big lunch we had. We made reservations for tomorrow night to eat dinner there so looking for to that.
No plans in the morning, so will take it slow and see where the day leads us. Ciao!
