Day 37 – June 25, 2025 – Foiano, Italy
Barbara came and picked us up at about 10 am this morning and we headed to Montalcino, where we were taken to the Patrizia Cencioni winery. We were met by our guide, Angelica, who told us it’s family-run and women-owned with the owner Patricizia and her two daughters, Annalisa and Arianna. It is located on the southeastern side of the Montalcino hill, and they have a total of about 50 hectares (about 123 acres). The vineyards date back to 1989 when the winery was born, so still a fairly new one, and their grandfather, Guiseppe, was one of the founders of the Brunello di Montalcino Consortium back in the 1950’s, which is their main wine focus (Brunello).
After touring their cellar and hearing about the wine making process, we were taken to a beautiful tasting room and tasted six different wines, also paired with the usual fare of cheese/meats/breads. The wines were lovely and the views from the tasting room were spectacular! We all decided to choose wines and went in on a case together. We’ve been joking that John can’t buy any more wine, but I can, so I guess I bought some today, lol! They also produce their own olive oil, which was amazing, so we bought some of that too to be shipped home.
Our next stop was at Pienza, where Barbara booked us a beautiful outside restaurant (La Terrazza del Chiostro), though it was still too hot for me, and we had a great lunch. I was hoping they’d have a salad of some sort, so I opted for……. pasta, lol! It was good, but I was so hot that I couldn’t eat a lot of it. We finished lunch and met up with Barbara to head to Montepulciano.
This was mine and John’s third time back to Montepulciano, but we didn’t mind. We had the wine tour and tasting again at De Ricci cellars and our guide, Ron, remembered us from the last time we were there. We tasted all six of their wines along with the usual snacks. No wine was bought, but I did receive a complimentary bottle as Ron knew that my birthday was tomorrow and I found out his anniversary was on the 27th. What a nice and sweet surprise!
Barbara dropped us off about 6:30 pm and Vance and Kristin hopped in the kitchen and quickly cooked us a great meal of sausage, peppers and onions with toasted buns. We also had a bunch of fruit to go with it as well as some leftover orzo.
Since it was a late dinner, everyone chilled for a bit after clean up and we called it a night. Tomorrow we are going to a monastery in Chiusure and then taking them to Siena to look around and get lunch at our favorite place, Il Biondo. Today was a great day – ciao!
