Azienda Agricola Lanciola
Super, Super-Tuscan Wines
This past summer I had the opportunity to travel to Tuscany and to stay at some of the most important wineries both in the ‘Chiantiville’ area and in Bolgheri. One of my rest stops landed me at Azienda Agricola Lanciola, a Chianti producer whose wines we have highlighted at Wine at Five for a number of years. There is something special about drinking these wines in-situ, on holiday, on a beautiful day overlooking the hills that make up Chianti. And I know that many of our customer and our friends have made the point that the wines simply taste different, and better when they are in Italy, or France or Spain. I’m not going to break that myth but I want to make this observation about Lanciola and then let you decide whether the myth is real or not. I had arrived two days earlier in Paris and spent my time walking through the alleyways of the city, feasting not just in restaurants but feasting on everything around me – Paris in the summer is unquestionably one of the most beautiful city’s in the world. To get to Florence I had to fly Ryan Air to Pisa, get my rental car, drive two hours along a two lane highway and then enter the myriad of tiny little roads and towns that are at the center of Tuscany. No problem; flight was reasonably on-time (3 hours delayed); car rental agency was in the airport, albeit a brisk 20 minute walk away in 104F heat, the car was lovely – a brand new white Ferrari masquerading as a Fiat 500 Sport with two doors – similar only in that description. The highway was fine, traffic going into Florence at rush hour was pretty much like anywhere else. Bumper to bumper, 5 mph average. Turning off toward Via Imprunetana per pozzolatico, not a problem. Well sign posted, if slightly vague sine there are two towns, Imprunetena and Pozzolatico but I figured that my trusty GPS would get it right. Wrong. Time now was 7:30 in the evening, Saturday. No stores open and there were no restaurants along the way. Gas stations were closed and I think the entire populace was at evening mass. My little GPS took me to Via Imprunetana and we searched for the right number. Wasn’t there. So we double backed and tried again, and again, and again. Then we called our friend, Giancarlo, the owner, but he was on a boat racing around Sardinia. So we knocked on a few doors but between my non-existent Italian, the fact that it was dark and I was dishevelled didn’t help to convince anyone to help me. So we tried again, and again and again. At 9:00pm a phone call from the Villa’s caretaker – was I planning to visit them and stay a few nights? If so I should maybe look for their house in Pozzolatico since that’s where they lived, not in Imprunetana and Via Imprunetana was just their way of saying ‘don’t go to Imprunetana but take the road from Imprunetana to Pozzolatico’. Of course!
At 11:00pm we arrived. tired, very dishevelled, very hungry and just a little stressed out. Could we put our bags in the villa and join someone for dinner? Yes…and…No. Dinner was finished, no restaurants were open but the cafe, 1 mile up the road may be about to shut. Back in the Fiat Testarossa we hurried to find the cafe and miraculously they had been to mass and were feeling benevolent. The two young men behind the counter served up the best dinner I had during almost three weeks in Italy. Plain, simple, lip-smackingly tasty and so authentic. We also devoured two bottles of Lanciola – his uber-Tuscan Terrici and his decadent Riccioneri. So heres the myth buster – I had been travelling for 12 hours, delayed in an airport for 3, stranded in the middle of nowhere looking for a place that the Gods had decided to make invisible, had not eaten since the night before, whilst accompanied by my wife of 20 plus years who had also suffered all of the above. “Stress” would be a little demeaning as a descriptor of how I felt. And yet, after the first mouthful of Terrici I forgave everyone, my navigator, my GPS, Ryan Air, the motorway, the Fiat Testarossa and the many people along the way who had definately not tried to help me! So the myth says that the wines abroad taste better simply because you are on holiday, you are relaxed, the countryside is beautiful, etc. etc. Myth busted: I was not relaxed, I didn’t feel like I was on holiday, it was pitch black outside, and I hadn’t eaten in almost 24 hours. And the wine tastes as decandent over here as it did there! And so I bought a bunch of it for the store. You have to try it to appreciate it.
This is Super Tuscan at it’s finest – $41.00 per bottle.
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