Oil and Wine

Sun 10/13/2013

We were allowed enough time for a shower and to pack for our next destination in the province of Pescara. On the way, we stopped at a Franciscan abbey that dates to the 12th century for a look around and to admire the view from the abbey looking out over the Adriatic. The abbey was very simple and beautiful with a peaceful courtyard. It is also the site of the oldest known olive tree, 1000 years old. (It's now dead.)

View from abbey over the Adriatic

1000 year old olive tree

Abbey garden

From the abbey, we drove along the coast, known as the "trabocchi coast" because of the fishing devices known as trabocchi that are all along this area, many of them 100's of years old and still in use.   Somehow the topic of gelato arose and Leonardo insisted we stop at "the best gelateria on the coast." We couldn't fight it.....we had gelato.

We checked into La Rustica, our agriturismo lodging, had a little over an hour before we were off again to the village of Bucchianico for an olive oil tasting and a visit to an olive oil museum created by a local family that has been in the olive oil business for generations. The town of Bucchianico's claim to fame is as the home of Camillus de Lellis, founder of a religious order that cares for the sick. He originated the symbol of the red cross hundreds of years before the international organization was founded and this is the symbol for the town of Bucchianico.

By now, it's 8:30PM and we have been on the go since 6:30AM and we now are on our way to dinner and wine tasting. (We have now realized that we're waaay too old for this pace no matter how much fun we're having.)

We enter a very nice and quiet restaurant and decide to make a stop at the bathroom and Leonardo says fine but don't look down on your way there or back. We obey (of course) and subsequently find that there is a window in the floor to the cellar below, our next stop, where there is lots of noise and activity. The cellar is a crazy place with hundreds and hundreds of bottles of wine, tons of people milling around eating and drinking. As you enter the room, there is a bar of sorts with Claudio, the sommelier, presiding. He knows we're coming and knows that Dick knows a thing or two about wine.

Claudio

The bar where Claudio presides

He chats a bit and suggests some prosecco to begin the evening. In the meantime, waiters pass through continually with fabulous hors d'oeuvres to nibble as you drink. We rapidly progress to prosecco number two.

There are multiple rooms in the cellar. One room has a table with meats of all kinds and is also the place where the waiters place the hors d'oeuvres after they have passed through. Another room has a table with cheeses of all sorts. And then there are several rooms that just have stores and stores of wine. Dick has died and gone to heaven. I'm worried that he will never leave this place. 

Cheese table

Meat table

 We cruise around nibbling and visiting with Claudio quite regularly as he pours tastes of one wine after another (generous tastes, I might add) progressing through whites and onto reds and visits with Dick and questions him about every wine and asks his opinion, all in Italian.  At some point Leonardo tells us we should go upstairs for DINNER (???) after we have had our weight in hors d'oeuvres not to mention significant portions of wine. We think we have won when we tell him there is NO WAY we can eat dinner and he accedes (we think.) Then there appears the waiter with plates of cubed grilled tenderloin of beef for us followed by something pasta (which we now can't remember) and then finally dessert. By then, we've been there over three hours and are ridiculously stuffed and possibly un po' drunk. We line up the ten bottles from which we've tasted for a memento picture.

 It's 12:45 when we get back to our lodging. We have had a truly unforgettable day (except for that pasta dish....blame the wine.)