Firenze: Week 3- Tuscan vs French Wine
If the title of this blog caught your interest because you are wondering about the age-old battle superiority between French and Italian wines, I am sorry to disappoint. Despite the title and my ever-growing connaissance of vino, thanks to sojourning in three regions quite proud of their wine (Vienna, Paris, Tuscany), my motto for wine is still: if you like it, it’s good wine! No, this blog is not really about wine, but about cultural exchange.
Since I last wrote, our program has taken two trips into the Tuscan countryside to enjoy views, wines and learning about the (female) leadership that cultivated beauty and quality from a parched earth. First, we visited the winery of Donatella Cinelli-Colombini, a female-run production in Montalcino. It is a great story of a woman returning to the Tuscan countryside to rediscover her family heritage and then growing a top-rated wine company and expanding tourism despite gender-based biases. It was beautiful and interesting- and it is always fun to do a wine-tasting, because little tastes of everything is my favorite way to tourist, and to learn.
Then this past weekend there was a magical meeting of worlds when my favorite wine expert came to town from Paris. My amazing French-mom, Fabienne, who you may remember from my Paris blog, or even further back to my email-only updates in 2018, flew to Florence with her son Victor (now helpfully christened by a Florentine-leather-shopkeeper as my basically-brother) to spend the weekend with me. I was a little nervous about speaking in French, and sure enough- as soon as we reconnected I could hardly put a sentence together because my brain was so steeped in Italian. It was English from there, but by the end of Sunday, I was feeling more situated in French again anyway :-)
The weekend was so full of laughter and enjoyment- it really was like a dream. I saw Florence through fresh eyes with Fabienne and Victor. Fabienne loves Florence and how it has retained its Renaissance architecture and not been corrupted by modern buildings. And it is true- I was able to start seeing that more, and this in contrast with Parisian Haussman-style architecture: beautiful, but different. Each representative of the culture of these cities in important ways. This is something that I keep discovering with art- whether it is music and its intertwined connection with language, or now architecture and its intertwined connection with a place throughout time. Life informs art and art informs life. And Victor had never been to Florence, so this contrast was also welcome and interesting. Also for me to see an historic European city through the eyes not of American tourists, but European tourists, was fascinating.
We enjoyed strolling through the city, going in and out of shops and finding delicious food and aperitivi, thanks to some wonderful recommendations from friends. The “fake David” in the Piazza della Signoria became a running joke. The second day, we went to the 10:30 gregorian chant mass at the Duomo, which was a fascinating peek into history and culture. We then ventured up on the opposite side of the river Arno to piazzale Michelangelo for a beautiful view of the city. We discovered pink spritzes and suddenly a thunderstorm rolled in and we found ourselves huddled with 15 other tourists under umbrellas in front of the bar. Worse places to be :-) We were quite ready to get lunch 45-minutes later when the downpour subsided enough for us to venture back down the hill. Our lunch spot ended up being perfectly luxurious- the chef/namesake of the place (Zeb), being an absolute dream as he served us his wine and our three courses as we sat in the most chic and cozy restaurant. We met a lovely Australien woman who was dining by herself and writing. She liked my laugh!
Before seeing Fabienne and Victor off, I popped into a tourist shop to buy a little David statue for each of us. We even managed one more shop, a hat shop, where Fabienne couldn’t choose between two hats, and bought both, meaning she would also have to wear both on the airplane. It was so wonderful to see them, for us all to have such fun together and to really get to know Victor better. When we first met, he was just a teenager. It is always more fun to converse as two adults. I feel incredibly blessed to have a diverse family system of friendship and support.
Next on the delightful series of events was a trip into Tuscany to see the estate and beautiful gardens of Iris Origo, enjoying a wonderful meal and wine from a 0km restaurant (meaning everything they used in the meal was sourced by the farm: cheese, wine, bread, pasta, meat, veggies, cannolis: everything!), and finally a stop at the scenic Renaissance town of Pienza. My mind was a blur as I took it all in, so I will offer these pictures for now. I will say, it was such a relief for me to be out in nature a bit, breathing fresh air, looking out a long way, and going barefoot in the grass. I miss this!
The food is good, the wine is good, the views and friends are good.
A very grateful,
Marie in Italy
