October 31 Blog & Pics - Greve, Panzano and tour of an olive frantoio!

Pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/debstah1/sets/72157622746453632/


4:45pm: At the farmhouse after our last, fun, beautiful sunny day in Tuscany. Woke up around 6:30am, showered, and we left around 7:30am. Set off for Greve in Chianti along the beautiful country roads and the famous road 222 that goes through Chianti. A pretty easy hour or so drive and we were there. Greve definitely wins the award for most convenient parking lot, which is large and free and just a short level walk from the town center. We had a delicious pastry and cappuccino at a café and found the main square where the weekly market was going on - it was pretty impressive, with mobile pharmacies and clothing and shoe and kitchen stalls, in addition to some food, fruits and veggies, fish, meat, cheese, rotisserie chicken, and much more. I bought a type of olive - Ascalone or something probably not even close to that - that I've never heard of. They're huge and green and fairly mild and delicious indeed. I bought a huge apple to eat and it was also quite tasty. We wandered around a bit. I found a wine shop that advertised new oil and it was in a small .25 liter can, so I bought it because to that point all the olio nuovo we'd seen was in huge glass liter bottles or more. Then across the square there was a little alimentari (mini food market basically) that had oil in a big metal cask. So I bought a quarter liter bottle of that, which was cool because he poured it out into the "amateurish" glass bottle then capped it for me.

So then we went to Lucarelli, which is nothing more than a few houses, and to Panzano, where we went into this neat shop called basically "academy of good taste" (Accademia di Buon Gusto, I believe) - so the guy, dressed all funny in an apron and beret, tell us it's good music, good food, and good art. It was cute because his little daughter was there, asking to taste the local honey and she was shy. He was asking her to say her name in English and was taking pictures of her. He said she only gets to come to the shop with him on weekends. Really special to see this kind of family involvement that is so rare back home. So we're chatting with him a little, and he asks if we want to taste something special that's nonalcoholic. I joked that I didn’t believe him, but what he did was pour out a couple drops of this thick liquid - basically it is the new sangiovese grapes (the ones used to make chianti) that were harvested in September, cooked down into a syrup but not fermented. It tasted kind of like thick liquid figs. A really cool experience that I will probably never get to have again. He told us we must go to the famous butcher's shop, so we did. It was pretty funny. This crazy guy is behind the counter selling tons of good-looking meat, and then all these men are in the butchery eating little snacks on bread and drinking Chianti at about 11:30am. We watched the scene for a few minutes and then left.

I had the bright idea to drive up to this little hamlet called Lamole because I'd heard there was a good restaurant up there for lunch. After the most harrowing 15 minute drive of our whole stay here, circles and circles of really narrow winding roads to the top of a hill, we arrived at noon only to see that the restaurant didn't open til 12:30, and this was a problem because we had to be in San Polo, about a half hour away, by 2pm for the olive oil tour.

So, we drove back down and just decided to go back to Greve for lunch since it's a bigger town and it's on the way. So we went back and went to the main square and ate at Il Portico, a cute little place that had been recommended to me. I had roast chicken and fried potatoes, which was good (even though the chicken was dark meat). It was a nice change. We got a gelato on our way out - I got dark chocolate and chocolate mousse - and headed towards San Polo. We had no idea where in San Polo the frantoio (oil factory) was, so after driving around for a while (and seeing other people painstakingly harvest their olives by hand with a blanket under one tree at a time), it was 2pm so we called our buddy Paolo at Pruneti. We were completely lost, so he said he would meet us in the Center, he would look for our Ford and find us. I was convinced this was never going to work. Luckily he had Renee's number that we had called from, so after about 20 min he calls and says he was there and didn't find us. I tell him we're in front of the Coop supermarket, so he says he drove by there but that he'd be right back. So a few min later he shows up and asks where's the Ford, so we point to it and he says he didn't see it the first time, ha. Surprisingly, he's quite a young guy - I guess I figured someone this excited about his family's oil business would be older since they say it's often hard to get the younger generations involved and excited. So we follow him to the frantoio which was hilariously only a couple minutes down the road - but in a place we never would've found.

So he takes us in and explains how, in adorably broken English, this is a new building they only moved into a couple weeks ago, and how they just started harvesting the olives 2-3 days ago and they just set up the machines and whatnot for this year's harvest and that they'll finish it next spring. He proudly explains how it's a 3rd (I think?) generation business and how he and his dad and grandparents and wife and brother and everyone in the family is involved in the business and that they really specialize in the oil (though we saw saffron too, in the Buon Gusto shop in Panzano). He even more proudly shows us all the different machines, that take apart the olives from the stems, that clean the olives, and finally and most proudly of all, the new high-tech machine to press the olives for oil, that controls the temperature and the air that can ruin the oil, etc. I joked that they don't use the stone mills anymore and I don't know if he realized I was kidding but then he excitedly explained in the best English he could muster how he's been studying how to use the old mill in a way that will still produce good oil. He explained that right now it's too hard to control with the stone mills, and that too much air gets into the oil that way and oxidizes it so the quality's not as good as with the new fancy machine. I mean I love olives and olive oil and all but this is this family's passion and it was amazing how warmly he and his family greeted us in a brand new building that was clearly not open to the public yet.

So he explained that they were still out harvesting the olives in the afternoon and the process of actually crushing them wouldn’t begin for a couple hours, and he said we could stay and wait if we wanted but right then, we could at least taste the oil pressed last night, or we could go to the office and see last year's production and I guess the whole range of what they produce. We said tasting last night's oil was fine so he took us into the temperature controlled room which was FULL of vats of various sizes of different oils. He explained how, unlike most producers, they keep all of the different types of olives separate and make separate oils because they specialize in oil. So first we tasted a lighter kind of oil, which was pretty amazing. Of course he showed us the proper method to taste it. Then we tasted the "normal" production which was so strong it burned going down. It was so green and thick and cloudy, I've never seen anything like it. So of course then we had to buy some. We chose the "lighter" oil, and he got the tins and filled them by hand with a ladle and a funnel. The tins don't even have their labels on it. It was quite reasonable, much less than what I paid for the stuff I bought this morning, which of course I now regret buying. I now have a loooooot of oil to take home :)

He asked if we could stay to see the pressing later but we explained we were staying a bit far (about an hour) and that we were leaving tomorrow morning, and he actually sounded sad. He said we should write to him and he can tell us where to get their oil in the US and that we should come back because after the harvest in the spring they will finish the building and have a tasting room and everything, so hopefully they will start offering real tours and tasting to the public because I think people would enjoy it.

So he introduced us to his brother, the master oilmaker or whatever, and many other members of the family were there. It was really just amazing. There is nothing like it in the US, with people who have this kind of passion for what they do and the product they produce and are willing to just open their doors to these nobodies who don't speak their language who are just interested in what they do. It was really touching and special and I am so honored they were generous enough to share it with us. I will definitely spread the word about this company. We didn't take any pictures or videos b/c it seemed a little inappropriate so that is why I have been so detailed writing all of this, because I never want to forget such a special experience and kind gesture.

So then we headed back to the farmhouse and started packing up. Can't believe these last 2+ weeks have flown by so fast.

9:20pm: back after a lovely last dinner in Tuscany at Antico Desco down the hill. Before we left, the owner was in the sales shop downstairs waiting for us. He was so nice, he joked that he was here during the week but never saw us because we left so early. He asked us all we saw and once we started listing it out and stuff, we realized we really did see quite a lot of the places in this whole area. So we paid the balance and agreed to leave the keys in the same little box where we found them. I promised him I'd write a nice review online so more people might find them. He said no one new was coming to stay, at least not this coming week, so this lovely place will be totally empty for who knows how long, and that makes me sad.

Anyway, at dinner, our waiter tonight was there a week ago when we went on our first night, but if I recall correctly he wasn't there during the week. Anyway, he sat us at the same table, which I feel now is "our" table. He gave us a little aperitif of their white wine and didn't ask if we wanted it, so we presumed it was free (it was). We had the awesome roasted potatoes with the sliced Tuscan beef steak. It was awesome of course. Then we each had a chocolate soufflé for dessert, which was also awesome. We mentioned we were leaving tomorrow so he gave us a booklet that describes the restaurant, farm, and the products they produce. Also, like the other times they took off a bit from the bill because I think they have an arrangement with our agriturismo. I meant to leave a couple euros on the table as a thank you for the things they'd given us the times we went, but I totally forgot. Then again we did eat there 3 times in 8 days and the place is pretty quiet otherwise. Anyway, it was nice to have such a nice place like that such a short drive from where we stayed. If anything, the remoteness of where we stayed was the worst part. Driving in Chianti yesterday and today, I noticed that the distances are much shorter. All the towns in Chianti are about 20 min from each other and Siena and Florence aren't much further. Staying there makes more sense because you just have options when you're a bit tired and maybe don't feel like driving 20, 30, 40, or more minutes after dinner at night on dark roads, etc.

Anyway, can't believe it's the last night in Tuscany in our farmhouse. I'll take Renee to the station in Certaldo so she can get to Pisa for her flight home, then I'll drop the car at the Florence airport and taxi into town for the day. It's a holiday so I figure the city will be super busy or everything will be closed. We'll see.