The Water of Italy

After yet another long morning of class, our cultural activity of the day was a wine tasting with an LDM professor, Giovanni. Giovanni is a true Italian born and bred, and could clearly talk for hours about types, tastes, and the culture of wine. This guy says he drinks about a bottle of wine a day and makes his own wine and olive oil so he knows what he's talking about!
   
I learned many interesting facts about Italy's wine production. For example, Italy produces 5 billion bottles of wine a year-- and that's only the officially recorded bottles! He also told us that about 70% of the wine produced and sold in Italy costs less than gasoline. And based on the prices we see around the supermarket, I believe him! He also emphasized the differences between the wines of different regions of Italy-- how the wine can be very different based on the weather the grapes are grown in, or the quality of wine produced in different regions. 

   
We had the opportunity to sample four different types of wine. The first was a white wine called Sicilia (it comes from Sicily). We learned that for white wines, younger wines are best (no more than two years old) and what a good wine should cost (no more than 10 euro).
  
Our next two wines were red Chianti. They were both Chianti "classico" which means their grapes are grown in a certain region of the Chianti area defined by its saltier soil. One of the bottles was younger and one was "riserva", or aged. I was not as big of a fan of these, they were very strong! Giovanni said that this wine would be good with read meat and boars; boars because, "there are too many, they destroy vineyards so I eat them." Classic. 
  
The last thing we tried was not necessarily wine, it was grappa. Grappa is distilled from grapes and it kind of seemed to me like the moonshine of Italy. Giovanni said he used to make it illegally but "after the explosion" he and his uncle stopped. (Is this guy real?) The drink itself is not illegal, but the distillation process is so dangerous it is heavily regulated it sounds like. Plus, it's 40% alcohol so it's strong stuff-- too strong for me (or most people in the class it seemed like!). 
  
I enjoyed my wine lesson here- I now have a limited knowledge of this drink Italians live off of. It's such a big part of the Italian culture and I look forward to learning more about it through the semester!