Day Ten - Montepulciano

We spent the afternoon Tuesday in Montepulciano.  It is one of the better-known Tuscan hill towns, primarily for the wine produced there, vino nobile.  It, from what I can gather, is considered to be some of the best wine in Italy.  We had lunch at Il Paradiso in Trequanda on our way out of town, the new favorite eating place of our kids.

The town itself required a good bit of climbing as the hills were very steep, much like Cortona and a few others.  One of the more interesting things about Montepulciano was the amount of artisans and craft stores.  There were many local craftsmen working on everything from glass sculpture to mosaics to paintings and drawings.  We stopped for a few minutes and watched a man building a mosaic of one of Van Gogh's paintings.  He had just a hammer, the original painting, and what looked to be a very sharp stationary axe blade.  The man would take the tiny bits of glass and chip off very small pieces of the tile and place them on the template.  The amount of attention to detail was astounding.  We went from there up to the town square and climbed the civic tower.  The tower, as well as the village, was modeled after Florence, and it showed throughout most of the town.  We wandered through a few of the churches and other buildings, and found a nice play area for the kids to run around in for a few minutes.

As we made our way back down toward the car, we went into Contucci Wine Cellars.  We met the winemaker there, a man named Adamo.  Adamo has been making wine in Montepulciano since 1953, and was one of the most friendly people we have met on our trip.  We sampled the variety of wines he had available and bought a bottle of the vino nobile to enjoy back at the house.  Adamo has been made famous by Rick Steves, as he was featured in the guide to the city.  Adamo asked us where we were from, and when we told him, he said "Adamo famoso en America!"  Not long after we had gone into the tasting room, an American living in Italy came in.  She struck up a conversation with Adamo about the past, and he proceeded to tell us about his experiences with the US Army liberating Italy.  He told of the soldiers picking the kids up onto the trucks and giving them chocolate when they had no food.  The kids sat there completely wrapped as he told the story through the American interpreter.  I don't know how long we sat and listened, but we could have sat there all day.  He was a treasure to listen to.

We had gelato on the way out, which was ( again ) delicious.  I have not yet grown weary of our daily tradition.

Montepulciano was the last of the towns around here we will be visiting.  While some of them run together, there were a few that stood out.  We loved Montepulciano, Pienza and Montalcino, all for different reasons.  As we get home and review all of the pictures and begin to put the trip back together, it will be fun to revisit each of the towns.