Get on the Bus!

Road Trip to Panzano

Panzano is a small town, smaller than Greve, if you can believe it, located just down the road from Greve.  Duane, Tari, Kelly, and Jamie decide to use the morning to bus over to the town.  There really isn't anything in Panzano but Dario's butcher shop, but that is more than enough reason to make a road trip!

Grabbing the bus is pretty easy, but you still get that feeling once you are on the bus of "Man, I hope I got on the right bus"

Antica Macelleria Cecchini - Dario Cecchini

Thankfully, we did get on the right bus and our trip to Panzano was pretty uneventful.  We made it a little earlier than the shop was open so we killed some time wandering the city and stopped in one of the local shops to grab a coffee and pastry.

It is always easy to find Dario's butcher shop, if AC/DC is not blaring down the street, the striped red and white front is easy to find.  In case you miss both of those things and there is not a large group of people outside you can always look for the giant bistecca used for photo ops.

Maybe it was because we were there right when the shop opened, maybe because it was the middle of the week, but this was the quietest we had ever seen the shop.  We were literally the only ones in there!

The shop has a menu to help you determine what you need.  We always need the seasoning named Profumo del Chianti, his red pepper jelly and some lardo.  This year we brought back 4 jars of pepper jelly!  The lardo is always enjoyed back at the villa.

A view of the countryside as we travel back from Panzano to Greve.

Tari loves the hill!  The hill back up to our villa from the square of Greve was the bane of everyone.  You have two choices when it comes to getting back to the villa.  The more direct route, which is known as "the hill" or depending on our mood "the damn hill". The second option is to walk a little longer but a little flatter route.  Many times most of us would take the longer flatter route, much to Jamie's dismay.  For some reason he always preferred the shorter, but with a hill way.

You never know what you are going to see posted on a wall when walking around Greve.  Today it was an advertisement for we think is a water park....who knew those were a thing in the middle of Tuscany!

Lunch in the Villa and Pool Time

After gathering lardo today at Dario's and picking up several salumi and cheese options at the meat shop yesterday we did not need to go anywhere for lunch today.  Lunch was a nice picnic of bread, cheese and salumi at our kitchen table.  From here it would be a nice afternoon of wine drinking and pool sitting.

Not too shabby of a spread for lunch.... as Tari likes to say "This does not suck!"

You can't take it with you...

Which is why we normally have at least one "pool" or villa day where we can partake of some of the wine we have purchased over the last few days at the Enoteca.  As you can see, we have quite the choices to choose from!

Getting ready for the pool Jamie grabs our magnum of sparkling wine... not a bad way to start!  From there we move to a white Vermentino before we start digging into the reds

We go with a few known favorites in Caparzo and Podere Campriano.  As well as a few new ones.  Irisse we found at the local wine shop.  Lamole Lamiole was provided by our driver, Monica as it is from her old restaurant.

Dinner on the Triangle

After an afternoon at the villa all six of us decide to head down to the square to have some dinner.  You never know what you will find as you walk around Greve.  We all got a good laugh out of the keys attached to the windshield wiper.  Interesting place to return someone's keys....hopefully they will see them before trying to use the wipers!

We decide to try a new place for dinner.  It is not necessarily a new place for us, but one we normally get coffee, pasteries at in the morning or gelato at during the day, not dinner at night.  Dinner will be a new adventure!  The view from the restaurant does not get old though!  What a view to take in during dinner!

We are starting off on the right foot.... nothing like a little Nozzle red wine to start the night.  This wine is a favorite of the whole group, but really one of Kelly's top picks.

Smiles all around the table as we await our food.  We, of course, start with some appetizers.  

We start with our usual:  cheese, salumi, and some pate.  From there, we move into carppaccio. Much to Jamie's dismay... he is not a fan of what he calls "scraping meat off a plate with a fork."  The rest of us thought it was very good.  He survived, though, as we also ordered up a caprese salad.  It is hard to beat fresh buffalo mozzarella, basil, and fresh tomatoes.

Moving on to our main meals, we all tended to stay with our favorites.  Davin got gnocchi and Jamie got tripe.  Not sure how he cannot like carpaccio, but love cow intestines!

Pasta and pizza was the name of dinner tonight.  We actually got an additional pizza some how.  We are not quite sure how, but heaven knows we had enough food on the table!

Along with our favorite pasta and pizza dishes we found a new wine favorite.  Monsanto!  The label looks like what you would expect an Italian wine to look like and it tastes like what you would expect an Italian wine to taste like.

Our extra pizza....

Duane ordered up a pork shank that looked pretty darn good.

Kelly, of course, ordered up her gelato once dinner was done.  No matter how much food in on the table, Kelly will always find room for gelato!  She claims it is her special power.

Go to 6/15/17