Montepulciano

High-intensity travel makes me hungry — especially in Italy. The one meal I’ve been looking forward to more than any other is a big steak dinner at Osteria dell’ Aquacheta in Montepulciano. Warning: Vegetarians may want to skip this post.

They jam the place for four seatings (two for lunch and two for dinner) every day. It’s a long room with communal tables under a medieval barrel vault. In the back, like the engine of a steam train, a fire roars behind a huge hunk of cow lying flat as if on a gurney.

 

You don’t have much of a choice here. Giulio, who reminds me of George Carlin with a cleaver, parades through the room with slabs of beef for diners to consider. It costs about €3 per hundred grams (about $3 per quarter pound) and they serve 1.6 kilos of beef for each couple (about $50 for two). You don’t say how you want it cooked. There’s a correct way: seven minutes on each side. Fifteen minutes after you say OK, it’s chow time.

 

Every few seconds the happy sound of “George Carlin” slamming his cleaver through the beef rockets through the room — stoking every appetite under that old, brick-domed ceiling.

 

Osteria dell’ Aquacheta brings out the carnivore in all its guests.

 

Vegetarians won’t enjoy this restaurant. But she sure did.

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.” There is no better place in the world to confirm what Ben said than in Tuscany. Today I’m tasting some of the region’s great wines in romantic hill towns.

A big reason for visiting Tuscany is to not just sample the great local wine, but to have it served to you by the families who make it. With my friend and favorite Tuscany guide, Roberto Bechi, we’re taking it a step further. At the Santa Giulia farm we’re enjoying a “Zero Kilometer Lunch” — everything made right on the farm: bread, olive oil, cheese, prosciutto, and wine. We came, we toured, we ate. And you can too (if you have a good guidebook).

The town of Montepulciano is my favorite base for exploring the heart of Tuscany and wine country. A room with a Tuscan view like this is standard here.

A perfect way to maximize the Tuscany experience is to actually stay on a working farm. And family farms survive here with the help of being able to rent rooms to travelers. The term “agriturismo” can only be used by a rural B&B on an actual working farm. My favorite agriturismo is Agriturismo Cretaiole outside of Pienza, an idyllic retreat for any romantic tourist, lovingly run by Isabella and Carlo.

Wineries have cellars with massive barrels aging the Brunello wine. To be Brunello, the wine spends several years in a wood barrel like these. The wine is almost a religion here, and it seems that guides walk you worshipfully through cellars as if they were sacred spaces.

A great thing about Montepulciano is that the town has several historic wine cellars that you can explore, followed by generous tastings. At the Contucci cellar your host is Adamo. For 50 years, Adamo has made sure visitors enjoy a tasty education in the Nobile di Montepulciano. And I’ve been checking in on him for over a decade.

The countryside around Montalcino is dotted with classy wineries that are evangelical about taking visitors on tours and tastings. Unlike Californians wineries, here in Tuscany you need to book your tours (it’s a simply phone call the day before). Tours last an hour, cost about €10, and finish in a tasting room like this where, with expert guidance, you’ll development a better appreciation of the fruit of these vines. Did you find any particular wine tour in Europe exceptional?

With about 800 Rick Steves tours this year enjoying unforgettable experiences in every corner of Europe, I wasn’t surprised to bump into one of my groups in an Etruscan cellar below the streets of Volterra having a wine tasting by Francesco. I thought I’d just pop in and say hi (as I had a pile of visits yet to make that evening). But Francesco’s talk was so good (as were the wines he featured), I stayed for the entire presentation (munching perfectly matched prosciutto and cheese with the wines to call it dinner). This was just one of fifty groups of ours that Francesco will join for a tasty, educational, and memorable Tuscan evening this year.

Cesare, the coppersmith of the Tuscan hill town of Montepulciano, is a proud old artisan with a spirit as strong as the oak-tree root upon which his grandfather’s anvil sits. For Cesare, every day is show-and-tell, as steady streams of travelers with my Florence & Tuscany guidebook drop by to see him work, stroke his beautiful ego, and say hi. It is people-to-people moments like this that distinguish a good trip.