What is the number one reason people travel to Italy? To taste delicious wines, of course! As the hot sun of the summer beats down against your skin, with the most delicious glass of cabernet sauvignon in hand, you are lounging at an outside table at a restaurant. You start to relax further as you ask for a second and third glass and enjoy yourself on vacation. Whoops! You have the spins and giggles! Maybe you should have been more careful, but then again... you're enjoying yourself!
Getting drunk seems to have a negative connotation associated with it. Being intoxicated at inappropriate times is never acceptable, but drinking and enjoying yourself in the right atmosphere isn't so terrible. My family and I experienced this first hand when we traveled to Italy. My sister had newly turned 18 (the legal age in Europe), and we were all excited to try some delicious wine and sangria throughout our trip.
One day in Montepulciano, my family and I went a little overboard with our drinking, but it is not what you probably assume. Essentially, we didn't mean to get so intoxicated. We were enjoying ourselves!
It all started with a tour of a local vineyard, Cantine Dei. It involved a wine tasting, and my sister and I had never had an experience like this before. We dressed fancier than our everyday clothing and left the apartment with grins from ear to ear.
We arrived at the tour, and it all started great. About 20 minutes into the excursion, the heavens opened up. The rain came down heavy and thick. Nothing in the forecast had predicted rain, so the tour guide suggested we wait it out and then walk around the grounds because it must have been one of those freak rainstorms that come and go. After about another 20 minutes of chatting with the guide, the rain hadn't let up at all. My sister and I were exchanging looks hoping that the escort would not make us walk outside in the downpour of water. Unfortunately, to get to the wine tasting room, we needed to walk about 100 yards outdoors to get to the other building. Not only did we have to go outside, but we have to walk down a spiral ramp coated in water. The water was flooding the ramp and was about ankle deep at the bottom, but there was no other way, and we were determined to enjoy our tasting. After offering us umbrellas, the guide led us down the ramp, and we were all practically skating down it. We jumped over the big puddle at the bottom and entered the underground tasting area.
My feet were soaking wet at this point, and luckily so. We rounded the corner, and the roof of the hallway before the tasting room was leaking. Employees swiftly were keeping the ground clear of collecting water, but the floor was still slippery. We all made cautionary footsteps down the hall and into the warm, inviting tasting area.
We all sat at the table with some other families, and I tried to secretly swing my feet under my chair to dry them off. With no luck and still soaked, I eventually gave up on that method. They served the wine to taste along with biscuits to cleanse your palate. I knew that you weren't supposed to swallow the wine during a wine tasting, but my sister and I were in the headspace of, "We are in Italy. Why not?" As glass after glass of different wines were served, we just kept swallowing them all. Across the table, there was a man of a pompous character who had been observing our behavior with disgust. He seemed to want to "educate" my sister and me and stated blatantly in front of the entire group, "Girls you're supposed to swish and spit. Not swallow." He proceeded with physically showing us the correct procedure. It was so disgusting the way he drank and expelled the wine into the spit bucket. I cannot even explain in words or detail how it was. It was something you just had to witness. Also, he took some biscuits and chewed them, then spit them out into the bucket too. Somehow he made that even more grotesque. My sister and I were holding back chuckles as we continued to consume the glasses of wine served to us. What made the situation even funnier was that the pompous man's wife and daughter were also inhaling their wine, making it seem like they both were defying what he instructed.
After about two hours of tasting wines, my sister and I were pretty giggly but not obnoxious. If we were, my parents would have given us the death stare. As we were exiting, the rain let up, and we got back to our apartment where we were staying and changed out of our nice clothes. We decided to explore the underground caves in Montepulciano that connected the most wealthy family's houses in the past. They used to use these caves in medieval times to escape the town if it was under attack. In the current day, these caves' use was to brew and store wines because of the cooler temperature. We did not have to walk far before we found a free underground wine tour, and all we had to do was taste wine at the end and give our honest opinion.
At first, I thought the excursion was too good to be true. Why would people offer a free tour, and then all we had to do was taste wine after? It sounded like a win-win to me. My family and I were led into the shop down into the tunnels by the tour guide. My sister and I are interested in spooky, possibly haunted areas, and we were hoping the tunnels were going to be a bit scary. In reality, the tunnels weren't frightening at all. They were well maintained and unique because of the smells and the current daylighting. The temperature was comfortable, and the tour was pleasant and not too long.
This next part is when the tour became enjoyable. We stepped out of the caves and to where the food and wine tasting area was. There was one glass of wine, then two. We tasted some food and listened to the ingredients. There was glass number three. After three came glass four. All of the wines tasted different and delicious. I could feel my face becoming flushed. We tasted some more unique foods, and wine number five somehow made it into our hands. It had been almost an hour, and my sister began to munch on all the food around. I started to laugh and try to hide my amusement with her munching. My father had a flushed faces and was smiling ear to ear. We were all drunk. They handed us our sixth and final glass of the tasting, and we all guzzled it down like the champions we thought we were. The people serving us our wine and food started talking about prices and shipping to the United States. The next thing I knew, my dad was pulling out his credit card and buying cases of the family determined the best wine and snacks. A few hundred dollars later, we were rich with wine and Italian serving foods.
We left the shop laughing, and our buzz lasted a few more hours as we were walking all over Montepulciano. We finally sobered up and laughed about how ridiculous we must have been eating and drinking everything they handed us. We reflected on the fact that we were getting cases of wine shipped to our Vermont home and how we needed to savor the deliciousness. We were giddy with the adventure and happiness of the day we just had drinking and experiencing the vineyard and this particular area of Tuscany. As we walked back to our apartment, we laughed and enjoyed each other's company as a family. We were happy to have a day like this one where we would look back and smile.
Weeks later, we were back in our Vermont home, and the wine and food arrived. We quickly opened a bottle of wine and drank it in slowly. The smell reminded us of Italy, and the wine was just as tasty as we all remembered. We opened the food, and we were preparing food platters to share with our immediate family. My sister and I bit into some of the food. We were waiting for the savory taste to grace our tastebuds once again. This time we looked at each other with disgust and expelled out what we were eating. It wasn't like anything we remembered from the shop. The only difference was that we weren't drunk this time! We were so intoxicated that any food we ate tasted like the best thing in the world, but now that we were sober... we were able to differentiate the food between what was tasty and what was not. The fact that the food was not what we expected almost made our experience in Italy even funnier! How could we have spent so much money on food that we did not enjoy! Were we that drunk? We must have been.
My family and I reflect on that day with warmness and laughter. We often tell the story to family friends about our adventures in Italy and how naive we must have been as tourists. We all smile whenever someone brings it up and even laugh about it when one of us gets a little too intoxicated. It is one of those shared memories that you never forget.
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