2 weeks left in Italy :):

I guess my blogs just keep getting further and further apart. I have been pretty busy with classes and studying for my quizzes / tests this week. We got to go to another vineyard on Wednesday. It was a lot bigger than La Striscia, which is the first vineyard we went to. The basic process is the same for making wine, no matter where you go, but Buccia Nera does things slightly different than La Striscia did. I don’t remember finding out how La Striscia actually mixes the must (pieces of fruit left in red wines to help give the desired color. Anastasia [owner of Buccia Nera] told us that the skin is actually really important for the flavoring of the wines as well) into the liquid while fermenting their wines, but at Buccia Nera she said they have pumps that they use and they circulate the must that rises to the top of the vat back down into the mixture 2 to 5 times a day for 30 minutes to an hour each time (so I guess it is good they do not have to do this by hand or anything). They explained a little more in detail about the differences in making red and white wines at this winery, which is kind of interesting to me.  For example, for red wines they keep the tanks kind of warm at 30 degrees C, because if the vats get too cold the colors will start to precipitate out of the wine, but excessive heat is also avoided because it will eliminate the aroma (which in case you didn’t realize it, smell has more to do with tastes than you might think. I have a fun “experiment” I learned while here that I’m going to make some of you reading this participate in… Haha).  On the other hand though, white wines are fermented at really cold temperatures (17 degrees C) and adjusted as needed for sterilization of the wine. Anastasia explained that they generally try to keep fermentation from one vineyard (since they have several) all together. Once the vats are empty and they need to be sterilized, they use peroxides and citric acids to do so. Just as La Striscia, Buccia Nera has oak barrels they age their wine in. These have glass vase looking things on top, which tell them if the wine is getting too high, and they may have to drain some of it out. Someone asked about the cost of these barrels and she said they cost about 10,000 euros and the steel ones cost around 12, 000 euro. That means just in the oak barrels they had about 80,000 euros sitting in this one little room! With the oak barrels, they only clean them with hot water. This is because the oak is extremely receptive to holding the tastes of the products in the wood, and I’m sure they don’t want weird chemical tastes from the sterilization in their wine. J Anastasia also explained to us the reason for aging wine in a bottle (I never knew why that was done. I thought it just was supposed to make the flavor better over time). She said that the wine is stressed from being bottled and it loses its aroma and flavor. Then after about 6 months in the bottle or so, the flavor and aroma come back!

I almost forgot to mention this. I had a hard time understanding Anastasia at times, so I THINK she was saying they use these flowers to help gauge how the grapes are doing. So I guess if the flowers are dying maybe then they know they need to do something to help the grapes so they are more healthy. 

This is the view looking out from their winery. It was so gorgeous!! 

Steel fermentation tanks 

Oak barrels used for aging. You can sort of see on the top how the glass works to show that the wine is getting too high, and they need to drain a little out. :) 

The best part of wine tasting is the delicious food! This place had the best olive oil and balsamic vinegar I have ever had! I got a bottle of each so if you want to try a little, let me know!!! 

We have nothing scheduled to do this week end and have 3 days we could go travel to other places. I chose to stay in Arezzo, but I don’t think any of the other students did. I ran into one of my instructors last night at the bar (which by the way has a totally different connotation over here… when I say bar, it would be the same as saying I was at starbucks or some other coffee shop type place back home), but I think he is going to go do some scoping out for things that may be fun for future students to do when they are here, so I’m not sure he will be around Arezzo much. I feel weird not having something scheduled until Monday morning, but it is nice that I have time to just relax and enjoy my time in Italy! There is a park up on the hill and I think I may walk up and read for a while today. It has a beautiful view of the city below, but the walk up sucks, because it is on top of probably the steepest hill in Arezzo. Lol. There are plenty of places I can go up there to just sit and relax, so I probably will wander up that way after a while.

I took exam # 2 yesterday, and I did pretty well on it. I am relieved that I feel like I am learning organic chemistry pretty easy and things are really making sense. I actually think I enjoy O-chem about as much as I am enjoying the culinary and cultural experience. That is surprising to me, because when we did just a tiny fraction of organic chemistry stuff in gen chem I was completely confused and did not understand any of it. Nomenclature (naming of molecules) was the hardest part of gen chem for me for some reason, but when we started working with it here, it completely makes sense and I feel silly that I ever struggled so hard with it, so all in all I think I am doing pretty well over here. I’m hoping I can pull of an A in O chem and my culinary cultures class, and then do really well in O chem 2 (which I start 17 hours after I land back in the states. Lol) this summer as well.

Well, I am going to find something fun to do. Until next time …….