Day 12: Colonnara Wine Tour

So what we thought would be a work day turned into a great exploration day. Corrado dropped us off in the village to explore and have a second breakfast while he went to the cellar to do a little bit of work with Giovanni. We enjoyed the town…it was quite small so the exploration was short but still enjoyed. I love this photo. I captured it when I saw the man poking his head out to fix his door as we were walking around town.

Then it turns out Corrado got us a private wine tour of Colonnara, a cooperative regional winery. Meaning multiple farmers give their grapes and the winery produces wine under one name. Then the farmers get a portion of the profit based on the grapes that are used. Colonnara, it turns out, makes the best sparkling wine in the region. It recently one some type of award, I can’t remember what it was but it was fairly significant. Anywho, the winery was beautiful. And large. Very much Chateau St. Michelle -esque. Everything was big and in large quanities. The highlight of the tour was the cellar where they kept the sparkling wine to let it age properly. Some of the bottles sit for 5 years before they are ready to sell. They also showed us a cool machine that froze the tips of the bottles, where the yeast is, so they can pop it out and top it off before bottling it.

It was very interesting and informative. Luigi, our guide, is from Cupramontana and spent some time studying in Finland. So he is fluent in Italian, and then when he speaks English is sounds very british. It was very entertaining. We ended the tour with a tasting. Which was a great way to wet our pallets for lunch!