Greve in Chianti

The street of Dario's butcher shop.

The road to Panzano

If you can imagine spending a day with a favorite and loved sister who many years ago moved away to Italy, this might begin to describe our day touring the towns of Greve, Radda, Panzano and Montefioralle in Chianti and the beautiful country side around. We have been traveling with Monika Iris, our guide and new friend from Greve in Chianti. We hopped into Monika's comfortable van at 10.30 in the morning and returned shortly before sundown!
In between, we met Angela the artist and ceramic potter, Dario the larger than life butcher, and Fernando, the philosopher, wine and olive oil maker. We also met scores of townspeople, shopkeepers, bakers and barkeepers throughout Greve in Chianti! Everywhere we went in these small towns, our guide was greeted warmly and cheerfully, and we in turn were treated as friends.
Angela the artist designs, paints and throws beautiful handmade and highly functional pottery in her family vineyard and olive orchard on a warm shaded hillside well outside of Greve. We saw no signs that would lead us to Angela's studio as her work is offered by word of mouth. While Cinda looked at the pottery, Maurice and I bumped into Primo, (Angela's grandfather?) Who at 84, still climbs the olive trees and works on the estate. We shared almost no common language. Primo knows no English, and I know almost no Italian, but still I managed to learn Primo's age, the age of his brother, and the fact that he was moving much slower these days because of a knee operation. Some of this we learned by show and tell when the pantleg came up and the scar was shown, and some of this we learned through the easygoing and comfortable translation skills of Monika Iris.
By the time we left, I had the privilage of sticking my nose into the fresh, citrussy clay urn of the family olive oil and the sweet aroma of the families vineager vessel. Both, like the family wine, are made each year.
Next, we took a back logging road through forest, farm and vinyard. After stopping at several expansive views of old growth cyprus, and for a herd of sheep, we arrived in the town of Panzano in Chianti. Here we met Dario Cecchini, the regions most famous Butcher. Dario makes perhaps one of the most impressive first impressions I have ever experienced, and this is why I capitalize Butcher here. His personage commands a room and seems larger than life!
Dario seems to be a bit of a celebrity, and his shop was full of people from all over the world, and at first it looked as though there was some sort of party going in the shop. Celebrity or not, Dario hand cut all of the meats we purchased. We ate much of it later that evening. The "beef sushi" was one of the best things I have ever tasted. Bravo!
We took many of the backroads today! My favorite stop was just outside the walls of the countryside town of Montefioralle, where we sampled the wines and olive oil of Fernando Siene.( http://www.aziendamontefioralle.com/ ).
Fernando the winemaker brought us several of his wines, served us a delicious lunch, and took us on a tour of his very small winery in the country. With Monika as interpreter, Fernando shared his wine, talked to us about world and local history, the land, the vines and olive oil.
Monika. Thank you for stopping at all the right places for views and pictures, and your patience. Most of all, thank you for interpreting and allowing us to feel the warmth and comfortable hospitality of the people we met.
For any of my friends out there reading this blog. If you ever want to visit northern Italy and want to put your self in the hands of a talented interesting guide:

http://www.monikairis.com/
Rob

The road to Panzano:

Still having a devil of a time downloading pictures to this blogsite. I am posting a few to my Facebook when time allows. Stop by and look at some pictures there if you have time.