Il settembre scorso, mentre eravamo in Umbria per la vacanza, mio marito ed io abbiamo avuto la bella fortuna d’incontrare i nostri amici Giselle e Mark Stafford per un giorno meraviglioso di degustazione di vino. Originariamente ho incontrato Giselle e Mark tramite internet, ma ora non mi ricordo il momento preciso quando la nostra amicizia iniziava, perché sembra che siano state grandi amici da sempre! Giselle e Mark sono persone calde, accoglienti e molto divertenti. Dunque eravamo molto emozionati di avere l’opportunità d’incontrare finalmente faccia a faccia!
Giselle e Mark sono inglesi e da tanti anni chiamano la zona di Montefalco in Umbria “casa”. Hanno una bell’impresa chiamata “Gusto Wine Tours” . Fanno le gite per far mostrare ai visitatori i vignetti e le cantini di Umbria e per degustare i vini della zona, come Sagratino. Ogni esperienza con Mark e Giselle è un po’ diversa ma sempre divertente e incredibile.
Ecco la loro storia (scritta da Giselle) di uno dei loro giorni incredibili: Un giorno nella vita di Mark e Giselle!
If you want a day with fun people, friendly locals, interesting places to see and unbelievably great wines, you can’t do any better than to join us for a wine tour! In the short space of just over a year we have become the top Trip Advisor Attraction in UMBRIA! We swing back and forth between 1st and 2nd place for ‘Must-do’ Tours in Umbria according to T.A. (as of May 2011).
We are an English couple living in the green heart of Italy – Umbria. We live within sight of Montefalco – the centre of an important DOCG wine growing area. As we are passionate about these wines, we are blessed to live in such a fantastic area. We’ve been asked several times, what is a typical day out like with Gusto? We have to say that every tour is unique and although they follow the same basic itinerary, the details of the day are always different and always fun!
Let’s take a day out from last year. After corresponding with a lovely young American man for several months, we finally got to meet him and his equally lovely girlfriend. We picked them up from a local train station (their accommodation was too far away for us to pick them up as we normally do) and then drove on to pick up two other couples who would join us on our tour that day.
After introductions were made, we headed off to our first cantina of the day. It was here we experienced our first surprise of the day. It just so happened that it was a special wine festival day and our little group was pleasantly caught up in an instant party atmosphere with a couple of dozen other wine lovers. Wines were tasted, talked about and local delicacies sampled.
We bid a fond farewell to this cantina and headed further into the hills to the second cantina on our tour. This was the setting for the second “bella sorpresa” of the day. It was in the very picturesque barrel room of this lovely old cantina, filled with fabulously large old barriques, where our very brave American friend went down on one knee and with a beautiful diamond ring in his hand, asked his girlfriend to marry him. It was perfect and of course she said yes! She had no idea he had planned to do this, but we on the other hand had been part of the entire surprise and happy to help our American friend pull of a dream proposal in Itay!
After that excitement and of course after tasting more fabulous wines, we headed for a very special lunch. Earlier in the day, I had driven to our special Sunday lunch spot to deliver a beautiful bouquet of hand-tied flowers to be given to the young bride-to-be. We then toasted the happy couple with a chilled bottle of Prosecco. Lunch was superb with many courses, but the piece de resistance was the dessert. Our wonderful chef had prepared the most sumptuous red and white heart-shaped cake complete with little edible red roses – it looked and tasted fantastic!
When we could finally pulled ourselves away from this delightful luncheon spot, we stowed the flowers and the rest of the cake and headed to our third and final cantina of the day. We provided our guests with a full cellar tour complete with some of the best wines, slices of hand carved prosciutto and bruschetta with the catina’s deliciously spicy olive oil.
By the time we were done for day it was nearly dusk and needless to say, we had a group of very happy guests to take home AND an invitation from the bride to attend their wedding! From start to finish it was a giorno perfettamente meraviglioso!
If you are interested in visiting Mark and Giselle for a fabulous day of wine tasting in Umbria, please contact them directly at Gusto Wine Tours. If you mention that Melissa sent you they will gift you with a special bottle of wine! Gusto Wine Tours è una delle cose preferite di Melissa!
Non dimenticare il concorso per vincere IMMERSION PLUS ITALIAN: Vedi il blog precedente per i dettagli! Concorso finirà Mercoledì 11, 2011! Ci sarà un video pubblicato sul blog del momento in cui scegliamo il vincitore!
