Ending our time in Tuscany
We began the second half of our time in Tuscany with a trip
to the BEAUTIFUL Cinque Terre to celebrate Marla’s 21st Birthday and
our one month mile stone of traveling!
We spent the weekend hiking between the 5 picturesque villages, taking tons of
touristy photos, and soaking up a little sun seaside with an amazing view.
Hiking between
5 towns that cling to cliffs turned out to be one of nature’s finest stair
masters. We definitely earned our bottle of wine and cone of fritto misto by the
end of it! Even during the hardest parts the beautiful views made the hike
totally worth the work out! Every 200 feet there was a look out that had views
even better than the last.
Finally
being able to see the view that had been my screen saver for months was a pretty
surreal experience, and being able to share it with my best friend over a glass
of wine… what could be better? After 2 full days of catching trains, hiking,
and cliff jumping we were exhausted but excited to head back to Tuscany to
finish out Grape harvest 2k15!
Cosimo Maria Masini turned out to be one of the most amazing
and rewarding experiences either one of us have ever had. The work was very
labor intensive but the scenery and amazing people made all of the heavy
lifting a little bit easier!
We felt so fortunate to be able to share our very first
harvest with our 6 other roommates from all over the world. We all had so many
stories to share and something new to bring to the table. We spent many nights
drinking wine on the porch watching the sunset on our beautiful vines. Our time
on the vineyard would not have been the same without our new friends!
Marla and I fell in love with the process of wine making
(and drinking) while in Tuscany. Yvonne the wine maker took us under her wing
and showed us the entire process. The way she taught us to interact with the
wines encompassed all five senses. Touching, tasting, and listening to the
wines to understand what is going on during this intensive process became a
daily lesson. We were able to taste Sangiovese (the largest percentage of grapes
grown on the vineyard) on the wine, throughout fermentation, during crushing,
and once it was taken off of the yeast. During every step of the process Yvonne
and Marina took the time to explain what characteristics they were looking for
in the wine.
While helping to take the wine off of the yeast Marla had
the BRILLIANT idea to try to and harvest the wine yeast to make bread. With a
little help from our baker friends back home and a little experimentation we
were able to bake bread using the yeast from the grapes that we had harvested
ourselves!! The best part—it even tasted good! (new business idea for the
future, maybe?)
From Italian lessons in the vines to wine tasting in Chianti, we made the most of our time in Tuscany! We got even more out of WWOOFing than we ever thought we would.
We are missing it already and have already made plans to meet up with friends
that we made during our stay at Cosimo Maria Masini. Our last night was filled
with great wine, great food, and amazing company and was the perfect way to end such a memorable chapter in our lives.
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