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Vineyard Visit: Castello delle Regine
When you think of Italy one of the first things that comes to mind is wine. On February 12 our class took a trip to Castello delle Regine vineyard near the small town of Amelia in the beautiful countryside of Italy. The brand name, Castello delle Regine, comes from a small castle that is located on the property of the 300 acre vineyard. Upon arriving, our group was met by our wine professor, Giuseppe. We all got off the bus and went out into the muddy fields to look around and take pictures. Then we got together and Giuseppe started giving us our lecture that was quickly stopped so we could move back onto the bus and out of the snow. Yes I said it snow. According to Carla it was the first time it had snowed in about 20 years and yes we were fortunate enough to experience on the day we visited the vineyard. Although it would have been nice to see the vineyard on a warm sunny day when everything was in bloom; the vineyard was still really pretty with the huge snowflakes falling. After we got back on the bus, Giuseppe began telling us about the vineyard and wine in general. This particular vineyard produces 8 types of wine: 5 red, 1 rose, and 2 white but is best known for its merlot. This company also produces olive oil. Giuseppe explained how weather can impact the grape, quality of the wine, and whether or not that wine will even be produced that year. For example, if there is too much sun the wine will be to sweet or if there is too much rain the wine will be bad. Giuseppe then explained the process by which grapes are picked, de-stemmed, and then processed. We walked through an area where the vats were that had fermenting wine. The red wine was kept between 24-27˚C and the white wine was kept at 4˚C during fermentation. The wines underwent 2-3 weeks in the vats for alcohol fermentation. We then went to look at where the wine is stored and aged in barrels. During aging the wine is kept at 18˚C with 75% humidity. The wine typically spends 1 year in a barrel aging and 2-3 years in a bottle. The barrel is important to the smoothness of the wine. I was amazed to learn that one barrel of wine will fill 250 bottles! We also learned some things about aging like that merlot can age for 20 years and be getting better while you typically do not want to age white wine longer than 5-10 years. Next we split into groups. I was with Jess, Krista, Lisa, Dana, Christine, and Jill and we were allowed to mix different types of wines to make our own wine. We called our concoction “Wine Not?” To finish off the day we took the bus to a little hotel/restaurant for a wine tasting and lunch. For the wine tasting we got to sample a white, rose, and red from Castello delle Regine. My favorite was the rose wine. I really enjoyed this class trip. We got to see the beautiful Italian countryside, I learned a lot about wine, and I got the chance to sample some good Italian wines (not that 2 Euro a bottle stuff us college kids buy).
