Saturday Nov 13, 2010
All photos from our port of call at Livorno can be found here.
Saturday found us in the heart of Tuscany. The port of call was Livorno, a very important port city for both tourism and commercial shipping. Its importance to tourism is its close proximity to Florence and Pisa. In fact, most of the shore excursions offered by the cruise line focused on these two places, specifically Florence. However, since the majority of us had visited Florence two years prior, some of us decided we wanted to see and do something different. Others in the group wanted to go back to Florence and see things they didn't see before (like Michelangelo's original David), but seven of us - me, mom, dad, Rod, Odette, Reba and Mac - went on a private tour gallivanting around the Tuscan countryside. Our tour provider was Prestige and our driver was Giancarlo. Reba had arranged the excursion to focus on food, wine and scenery, and boy did they deliver. The tour was again a private excursion, and for the seven of us, the cost was €650 (at the exchange rate of the time, that came out to roughly $962, or $137.50 per person.
Our first stop was at an olive oil mill/press facility. It was right outside a village who's name I cannot recall (maybe one of my fellow travelers will leave a comment below and let me know?). And that's bad, because I hadn't had anything to drink by this time... Honestly, though, I didn't really know where in the heck we were. Anyway, we happened to be visiting Italy during olive harvest time, and the mills were busy all over the place squishing olives for their oil. It was a neat experience to see the process in action and see how they operate - not necessarily from just the mechanical standpoint, but also how they deal with the olive producers. It almost equates to how cotton farmers here deal with gins at harvest time. Sometimes their produce is mixed in with other crops, but many times a crop is produced and bottled separately from, say, their neighbor's crop. This definitely gives variety to the selection of olive oil available. We also learned the difference between "regular" olive oil and what separates that from virgin or extra virgin. There is refined oil, and virgin oil. The refining reduces the acid content and neutralizes strong tastes, and refined oil is generally considered to be of lesser quality than virgin - unrefined, and therefore more natural - oil. Extra virgin oil is unrefined, but also has a naturally low acid content.
Seeing the mill and press in operation was really cool. When the olives come from the groves, they are put into a separator that pulls any leaves or twigs out of the stream of olives. They are then dumped into this large open vat that has these huge stone wheels that go around, along with a scraping/mixing arm, to do the initial mashing of the whole olive - including the pit. The wheels go around squishing the olives into a paste. The scraper turns and mixes the paste and also pushes the paste into a tube that delivers the paste onto a round device where the olive paste is alternated with round mesh or fiber discs that act as filters. Essentially, they put down a filter and then a layer of paste followed by another filter, another layer of paste, and so on until the stack is about a meter high. When the stack is finished, it is put into a large hydraulic press that then squeezes the stack to extract the oil. It is then captured, sent through some extra filtering and then put into storage vats. I was outside taking some pictures when some of the explanation was happening, so I don't know how long the oil is aged or stored before being bottled. However, we were able to purchase some pretty fresh oil from them directly from one of the vats. A 750 ml bottle was €9, about $13.50, which I didn't think was too bad for fresh-from-the-squisher genuine Tuscan olive oil.
 Olive Mill   |
 Olive Mill |
 Olive Mill |
 Olive Mill |
 Olive Mill |
When we finished at the olive oil press, we hopped back into the van for a ride over to the town of Greve in Chianti. Greve (the "official" name really is Greve in Chianti) is a really neat little town that is essentially the heart of Chianti country. After parking, we walked across the Greve River (looked more like a stream to me) and into town. Since it was a Saturday, the town square was filled with merchants plying their wares, and people in from around the region to shop and buy them. There was food, clothing, you name it, people were selling it in this open air market, town square kind of atmosphere. It was really neat to take part in it, especially in Italy. I absolutely love Italy and the people. They're generally friendly, easy on the eyes regardless of gender, and I could just sit and listen to them talk all day. The Italian language is so melodic and passionate, and it is a joy to hear. While there in the square, Giancarlo showed us an old fashioned Italian butcher shop/meat market called Antica Macelleria Falorni. They've been in the same shop in the square there since 1729, and their family has been in the busiess for something like 700 years. I encourage you to visit the link to see what all they have and get a peek into their store beyond the photos I took; the English site translations aren't the best, but you'll get the general idea. Anyway, you walk in and there are hams curing on hooks hanging from the ceiling. There was a huge selection of all different kinds of meat: pork, beef, veal, everything. And some of the most beautiful prosciutto I've ever seen (or tasted). In another section of the store they had a cheese shop. I absolutely love cheese, and I've only run across a couple of types that I didn't like. But this shop also had a cheese curing cellar below the main level. It was pretty cool to go down there and see (and smell!) the curing cheese - big wheels and blocks of it. Odette bought some Italian spices and seasonings, while mom and dad purchased some cheese and prosciutto for happy hour in the cabin on the ship.
 Greve Butcher Shop |
 Greve Butcher Shop |
 Greve Butcher Shop |
 Greve Butcher Shop Cheese Cell... |
 Greve Market |
 Greve River |
By this time it was time to head to lunch, and this is where things get a little fuzzy. Giancarlo said he was taking us to see his "crazy friend" that ran a winery and would feed us lunch. The winery was Tenuta Torciano outside of San Gimignano. When we arrived, the proprietor, Luigi, met us in the parking lot and showed us into the villa. We were the last group to arrive - there were already three other groups there totaling about 20 people. We actually sat downstairs in the wine cellar area, although that's really a misnomer. We were only about six steps down from the main floor, but they stored wine casks and barrels in there. Once we were seated the show began, and we knew it was going to be different - and not just because of the eight bottles of wine sitting at the head of the table. Luigi began his presentation, talking about the history of the winery. During that, the first course of food was served - antipasti with salami, prosciutto, bread and olive oil - along with the first wine. Now, I have a cheat sheet here where I kept track of all the wines we tasted. The first was Vernaccia di San Gimignano, a nice white wine to start the tasting - and the only white we sampled. Everything else was red. Wine number two was a standard Chianti, followed by a Chianti Classico. The next was Chianti Classico Riserva, and very enjoyable as a mid-priced wine. That was followed by the Brunello di Montalcino, the Baldassarre and then two of my personal favorites: the Cavaliere and the Bartolomeo Super Tuscan. I think I kind of preferred the Cavaliere Super Tuscan over the Bartolomeo, if for no other reason than the price.
One of Luigi's funniest moments was when he was describing to us how to properly smell and sample good wines. They were serving us in wine glasses that looked like large Burgandy glasses. They were sort of in the shape of a tulip, with a wide bottom, narrower middle, and then fluting out to a wider top. Luigi said, "You don't hold the wine glass like a brandy snifter. Pick it up at the stem in one hand, and then transfer it to your other hand - hold it by the base." The explanation was so that your body heat wouldn't alter the temperature of the wine. Then the funny part: "When you smell the wine, smell it! Use your nose and your mouth. You're not an elephant. You're not Pinnocchio. Stick your whole face in the glass and SMELL IT!" And then he demonstrated. Believe it or not, it really does help to smell with both your nose and mouth, as those senses are so closely tied. But I have to say, it does look kind of funny.
As we were tasting the wines, we were also being fed different courses of food. As mentioned, we started out with the antipasti, bread and olive oil. We then had a fabulous Caesar salad, then some bread and vegetable soup called ribollita. This was followed by the main course: Mama's Lasagna. I believe it was the best I've ever had anywhere. And I say "believe" because I was about three sheets in the wind by this point thanks to all the wines we had sampled up to that point. And one of the things that made it so yummy: they drizzled some truffle-flavored extra virgin olive oil over the top of the lasagna after they served it. Holy cow it was yummy! We also got to sample some of their balsamic vinegar. It was so good, I almost picked up my plate to lick the leftovers off! I've never tasted anything like it. And then we topped it all off with their desert wine. It was definitely sweet, but not as heavy as, say, a port. It was almost brandy-ish in the way it smelled and, to some degree, tasted.
Most of the folks on the ground floor had finished their meals and tastings, so Luigi was down in our area telling us some stories. He mentioned that his mother was 89 years old and still got up every morning to make the pasta for the wine tasting events that they hold there almost daily. Dad happened to mention to him, "This lady and gentleman here are both 89 years old." He was talking about Rod and Odette. Well, Luigi's eyes lit up and he fawned over them for a few minutes, then said, "In recognition of this occasion, I'm going to do something very special for you." He then closed the door to the ground level, retrieved a very nice box, opened it, and said, "This is my very special 2001 vintage Terrestre Super Tuscan." He opened the bottle, poured some samples in our glasses, and we got to taste a €131 bottle of Chianti. That's almost $200!!! It was fabulous, even as loaded as we all were, and a real treat to taste something that special and expensive.
 Wine Tasting |
 Wine Tasting Group |
 Wine Tasting |
With that, the lunch and wine tasting was over, so we loaded back up in the van and Giancarlo drove us to the town of San Gimignano. It is a very old walled town to the southwest of Florence with roots dating back to the Etruscans in the third century BC and before. We walked into the town inside the fortress walls to do some shopping and walk off some of the wine from lunch. Giancarlo also told us to visit the gelateria at the top of the hill in the town, as they supposedly had some of the best gelato around. We were a little pressed for time here, and the line at the gelateria he recommended was extremely long. So dad and I settled for some gelato from another place in the square (it was still very good) and went back down the hill to catch up with everyone. Then it was back in the bus for the drive back to Livorno. As we were driving, I was able to catch a few pictures of the evening's sunset, and it was spectacular.
 San Gimignano |
 San Gimignano |
 Tuscan Sunset |
Everyone had the early seating in the dining room aboard ship, so many days it was somewhat of a scramble to get back from the tour, clean up, change clothes and hit the dining room for supper. This day's task was no different, and I was further hampered by the early onset of a slight hangover from the day's wine tasting. Some more wine with dinner seemed to help that out, though... 
After dinner, my usual routine was to go back to the cabin, get comfortable, and then work on Photoshopping photos I'd taken. Needless to say, that didn't happen that night. I got a Sprite, hopped in bed and read my Kindle for a while. It was good I hit the rack early that night, as we had an early start in Civitavecchia the next morning.
Continue the story with our stop in Civitavecchia here.