Tour of Tuscany – The Winery

One of the really fun things we did was to visit Fattoria Il Poggio, where they make both wine and olive oil, for an awesome Tuscan dinner and wine tasting. The winery is located in Montecarlo, which is very close to where we stayed in Montecatini.

Fattoria Il Poggio	The vineyards
Olive Press: The whole olives go in here (pits and all), and are crushed to a pulp.	The pulp is spread on these disks, which are stacked together and then pressed. The resulting liquid is then separated into oil and water via centrifugal force.

After a quick tour of the grounds, we were served a huge and delicious dinner. Did I say huge? Make that ginormous. Unfortunately (?) we had so much wine that it never occurred to me to take photos of the food. We had 12 bottles of wine for 12 people. (But we didn’t finish it all – really!) But anyway, trust me, it was wonderful. Prosciutto, crostini, cheese, soup, pasta, chicken, ribs, cookies… whew! I’m sure I’m leaving out a lot.

And this next photo’s especially for Kim – the owner had an adorable Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy.