The Mysterious Ghizzano Winery

So, in the afternoon after the cheese farm. We didn’t have anything scheduled, and I was okay with this, since I wanted to get some writing in and to enjoy just chilling for a bit. So Chris decided to go down to the lobby to hang out and I stayed in the hotel and pulled out my computer to start writing.Chris had tried to squeeze in another wine tour for the day, but the people at the front desk of the hotel had told us it wasn’t going to happen because the winery wouldn’t do a tour unless we had at least 4 people.  Well around 2:45, Chris came barreling through the door and stated that another couple signed up for the wine tour and that we had to leave. So we suddenly had plans. I was a bit frustrated, but got up and put away my computer and grabbed my things.

We jumped into our little white fiat and headed over to the Winery using never lost. Unfortunately, Never lost  did not recognize the winery and was taking us to the very small village of Ghizzano. As we traveled around, the never lost ended up taking us on a very tiny winding, dirt road, that started to not seem like a road at all and seemed like it was getting smaller and smaller. I started to have a very real sensation that we were about to fall off a Tuscan hill and roll down through a winery. At this point I told Chris that I did NOT feel safe and that we needed to back up and go back the other way.  We slowly backed up and I pretty much thought we were going to die, but we didn’t, we made it safely to a clearing where we were able to turn around and regroup. My anxiety was spiking and we were already 30 minutes late for the wine tour, so I suggested we just go back to the hotel. However, Chris was determined to get to this wine tour. So he suggested that we put Ghizzano back into the never lost and see if we can find it and if we can’t we can head back to the hotel.  I agreed, as long as we didn’t had back towards the tiny, scary, winding dirt road. We ended up finding Ghizzano which is literally this super Tiny village. There are barely any buildings there. We found a place to park that almost didn’t seem like a legal place to park, and then we started wandering around looking for the winery. We walked up a very steep hill and started looking for signs. As we were searching we saw another couple that looked very obviously like tourists and Chris said “Bonjourno” to them to feel them out. When they responded back to us in the same accent as us, we started talking to them in English. Chris said “Are you guys here for a wine tour as well?” They responded “yes” and explained that they had been searching for an hour and that they had found the building that the address had lead them to, but it didn’t seem right. Well shortly after they showed us the door to the building they had found, a very young looking Italian women dressed in a short dress and black pants came out and greeted us. She seemed very surprised to see us, but welcomed us inside. We were very confused because every other winery we had been to had not been in a village, it had been in the middle of the country land. We walked in to this cool cellar like area, and there was a table set up for us with wine, and meats and cheeses. The tour guide explained to us that at Ghizzano they only keep two grape bunches on each vine because they feel that if you do this, the vine is concentrating all of it’s energy on making quality grapes out of those two bunches and not working hard to produce several grapes,  some bad and some good. She said that they do everything by hand to ensure the quality of the grapes and the wine. She showed us their cellar which was inside the same building and it was very dark in there and very medeval looking. It was pretty neat, but also kind a freaky at the same time. I keep thinking all of these old places are haunted, but I never really got that feeling when I was in any of the old building in Tuscany, maybe a little bit in Venice, but that’s another story for another day.

After she showed us the cellar she brought us the table that was all set up for us. We sat down with the other couple and the tour guide explained a little bit about each wine and told us which meat or cheese to try with it. It was the only time any of the wineries had done a food pairing. I mean, there was always food of some kind, but they never said, try this meat with this wine or this cheese with this wine.

The only thing that sticks in my head about the ghizzano wines was the fact that a woman from France had come along and said that she believed French Grapes would grow well in the Tuscany region. So she decided to prove it, so at the Ghizzano winery they have French grapes growing in their fields and they have a merlot mix that is made with French and Tuscan grapes and it was my favorite wine of the bunch, it was very tasty and smooth which is what I need in a wine. We bought the Merlot and the white wine from them even though their wines were more expensive than any of the wines we had seen thus far. 

After we purchased our wine, the tour guide told us she would have the gardens opened for us so we could go look around. She said there are two dogs there, but they are very kind and friendly. So we went an opened the gate to the gardens. They were very pretty and we said hello to the not so vicious guard dogs. After wandering through the gardens for a bit, we told the couple we were with that they should sign up for another winery that was close by called La Spinetta for Wednesday night and they agreed. 

So we hopped in the car and headed back, on the way we stopped for dinner at a restaurant called The Carlos and since we were early, as we often were for meals, we crossed the street and stopped in a clothing shop to look around for a while. Chris looked at some clearance suits and I looked at sweatshirts and other things. As I was shopping a woman who worked at the store came over and started talking at me in Italian and I quickly responded “Me despiacce, Non Copisco” Which means,  I’m  sorry, I don’t understand. She said “Ooh, and then kept talking to me in Italian, but was pointing at things to help me understand. I understood that she was pointing out the discounts on the clothing. We didn’t end up buying anything, but Chris considered coming back for a suit, but never did.

We walked back over to The Carlos and got seated in a part of the restaurant where it seemed they were seating all of the English speaking people because we were mostly surrounded. We had pasta with meat sauce, sea food, GF bread with olive oil and balsamic, French fries and salad and Chris ate some mushrooms. He said if I took a nibble he’d give me a 10 minute back massage and so I did, but still didn’t really like it, but it wasn’t bad. I have already cashed in my 10 minutes massage so it is time for a new bet! We had a lovely day.