Caught you red handed!!!

On Friday, we took a school guided trip to the outskirts of Florence to a local vineyard and wine production estate. After a 45 minute bus ride on public transportation (always guaranteed to be bumpy, hot, and slightly sweaty ride), our guide decided we better continue our journey up a huge hill where the estate was. Finally reaching the top, we realized that our effort was worth it.

This was one of the vineyards that we were able to walk past while coming to the top of the hill to the Malenchini estate. We walked through grape vines on one side and olive trees on the other to a wonderful chateu established in the 11th century...no big deal.

This is the courtyard at the estate. The land and villa came into the hands of the Medici family and our tour guide's husband's family purchased the estate in the 1830s...I'm going to say this was a pretty good investment. Everything about this place screamed I'm rich, our house is older than your country, and our wine is a secret...thanks for coming and looking.

Our guide decided to take us around the other side to show us the front of the villa...not a bad view to wake up to. The pots holding the lemon trees are over 300 years old...I'm not sure Home Depot sells these anymore. The only thing we could think about was how perfect the grass was for a football game...true Americans I guess. Nevertheless, this chateau was something else.

Another view of the villa, it might look old...well it is...but it has alot of character.

Our guide finally decided to take us down to the cellar and show us some of the prized family barrels. If you notice the latter, these barrels are rather large and contain enough wine to fill a small swimming pool. She said that the cellar remains a constant temperature perfect for the wine all year long. As we walked around, we couldn't help but think about how old this basement was and what old famous politicians had been there before us...very cool.

The best part of our trip definitely occurred when Scott's curiousty got the better of him. Being the curious engineer that he is, he wanted to know how tight the plugs were on the barrels. So he decided to play with one. Well if you notice the fourth barrel on the left, some wine has come out. That is from Scott playing with the top. Of course, he pulled it out and wine went everywhere. Luckily the only person around was me to witness this thousand dollar mistake. After quickly wiping his hands off and me taking a picture, we ran out of there laughing. Maybe 2009 for the Chianti Classico from barrel 24 at Malenchini estate isn't the best vintage. The only thing I could think of as we ran out of the cellar was, "They are definitely going to catch you red handed!"

The trip was great. We learned alot about wine production and was able to experience another side of Florence that we hadn't seen before.