08 May 2024
Within 20-minutes of being picked-up from our apartment we were tasting wines at the first of three family wineries to be visited in the Valpolicella region on our day-tour of this wine paradise. The host at each winery explained how their family made their range of wines. Tasting began with the easy drinking wines suited for daily meals through to the stronger wines enjoyed with cheeses and the company of friends. One winery put dark chocolate out for us to have with their strong wine and it surprised us how it pleasantly mellowed the wine's taste. After the first winery we stopped at a family restaurant overlooking the lush, green valley and had a beautiful pasta and ragu lunch. The pasta strands were incredibly thin and crushed easily in your mouth. The last two wineries were both located nearby the restaurant. Each winemaker explained their approach to vinification and gave us samples of various vintages. The payment we made at each winery for tasting their wines was happily paid as all of the more than a dozen wines we sampled during the tour were flavorsome and enjoyable to taste.
Our tour host was friendly and sociable and conversed easily in English with us. At the end of our tour we thanked him for having done the research to find such exceptionally nice wineries with very drinkable wines. We were very glad to have gone on our tour with him.