Barolo

Our weekend in Barolo was a great little vacation.  

We drove in on Friday just in time for a tasting dinner.  It was part of an event the whole town participated in.   Six restaurants served multiple course meals, paired with nine different local wines.  The tasting was blind, they poured two glasses at a time, and we kept score on printed cards, according to taste, color, smell, etc.  The names of the wines were revealed at the end of the night (Ryan and I took note of our favorites, hoping to visit those wineries the next day).  The meal was fantastic.  We had four appetizers (Russian salad, bread with herb butter, a huge plate of raw and cooked meats, and parmesan soufflé with spinach cream), two entrees (meat stuffed homemade ravioli and rabbit with mashed potatoes) and a choice of either raspberry panna cotta or a cheese plate.  I was hurting by the end of it, but could have licked the dessert plate - best panna cotta I've ever had.  And the wine was fantastic.  Ryan even asked for seconds just to make sure our first choices were perfect.  He calls these pictures "double fisting Barolo."

Here they are revealing the wines, as everyone looks at their score cards.  

We woke up to an amazing breakfast on Saturday, where I discovered a new cheese love - Rocchetta.  I think I'm going to have a hard time tracking it down... it's made in the Piedmont region we were visiting.  Later, we tried to go to our two favorite wineries, but ran into trouble.  They were on steep hills, at the end of dirt roads... GPS didn't register the addresses, and our little Smart car rental could only go so far.  We decided to try again the next day, and spent the rest of the day walking around the little town, reading on our balcony, and having more yummy meals.

We didn't get to ride the horses, but we did get to feed them.  I had the best time doing this... maybe it shows?  Look at my gigantic mouth open when the horses mouths open.

Left to right.  Closed... open.  Closed... open.  Ryan took about four sets of these pictures, and they all look the same.

We set off to find our favorite winery (again).  We got as far as the car could go, parked, and started hiking up the hill, surrounded by vines.  At the top, we realized the winery was abandoned.  We decided to head down to the car and try again.  The hike resulted in one of my favorite parts of the trip. You couldn't see people for miles... we were by ourselves in one of the most beautiful settings.

















We went back to the little town, had lunch, and decided to break out the kindles on a sunny bench.  We also asked about our winery, got better directions, and finally found it (third time's the charm).  We bought a couple of cases, and have high hopes of opening bottles after our move to the States, remembering our weekend in Barolo.