Wine Tasting

We've lived in Italy for two seasons now - IN the Veneto, AND only two hours away from the Sud Tirol - and we've never been wine tasting. Pathetic. We decided to fix that yesterday and drove to Bolzano with Stacy, Derek and Baby Gracie to taste some delicious wines from the Alto Adige-Sud Tirol region.

First we stopped at the Girlan winery and then made our way to St. Paul's for a little more. We tasted whites (Chardonnay, Biaca Riserva, Sauvignon) and reds (Pinot Noir, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Lagrein - my favorite wine of all time) and a dessert wine, Rosenmuskateller (lots of German up there in Bolzano).

We bought a few of our favorites to take home....adding to our already large load - oh well. We also got to eat dinner at a restaurant where you sit in huge wine barrels (awesome).

Next up: Munich tomorrow for Ryan's birthday!

More Christmas Marketing

On Sunday we headed up to Bolzano for the day to visit the Christmas market there - Italy's biggest and best. Also with all the Christmas-marketing we do during this season, we've never actually been to one in Italy. I drove, so it took us several hours to get there instead of only two. But it was so worth it. We walked around and checked out all the stalls which sold millions of Christmas tree ornaments and sparkly decorations and mittens. We ate big pretzels with melted cheese and drank gluhwein and, when we got really cold after the sun went down at 4 pm, tried a Bombardino which is a hot rum drink native to the area, and which we don't get in Cortina since we're technically not part of the South Tyrol region. But - we have prosecco instead, so that's okay. It ended up being a very successful trip because we finally found a star for the top of our tree - and because we stopped for Chinese food on the way home (it was Sunday night after all....no better time for Chinese food)!

Bolzano

I wanted to share a few pictures of our trip to Bolzano yesterday! I went with my friend Stacy, who was a great tour guide - she and her husband lived there last year and then were very close by for two years before that, so she showed us the city in a completely different light. I'm a Bolzano convert now - I have to say that every time I visited the city last year, I was glad that we didn't live there full time, but yesterday, I didn't want to leave!

After doing a few errands (Bolzano is a much bigger city than Cortina with much lower prices) Stacy took us for a drive on the Strada del Vino, which winds through the vineyards of the Sudtirol/Alto Adige region. It was warm and sunny and breathtakingly beautiful. We stopped in the most charming towns along the road - Caldaro, Appiano and San Paolo, which is where Stacy lived last year. Everyone was out in the town square sunning themselves and drinking wine or fresh apple juice.

We found a winery and bought Lagrein, which is native to that region - and we tasted some grapes right off the vine!

There were also tons of apple orchards along the road, so we stopped at a little farm stand to buy huge bags of apples, grapes and homemade wine from a man named Georg. It was funny - we couldn't figure out which language he spoke! We tried both German and Italian and he didn't seem to understand either....but he was happy just to pick out wines for us without speaking.

Stacy's friend from home, who was also with us, had just been traveling in India for a month and she made a comment that in India, you feel as though the world is ending and there are so many problems in life, but then you go to the Alto Adige, and all is right and beautiful in the world again. She definitely had that right yesterday!