The Thursday morning after sangria rolled around sooner than any of us wanted, but class (and group presentations) started at 8:30 so we all moseyed on down to Severini (the building our class was in). The group presentations all went well and were actually pretty entertaining to listen to. My group was assigned the region of Burgundy in France. This region is most well known for its Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines, so we ended up “creating” a special occasion Chardonnay (aka more expensive), an everyday Chardonnay (slightly cheaper), a special occasion Pinot Noir, and an everyday Pinot Noir. I was the Marketing Director, so one of my responsibilities was to design the labels which I really enjoyed. Despite Dr. Frank telling us our prices were out of range, I think we did a great job š We ended up creating a winery + bed & breakfast located in Cote de Beaune called Chateau Charlemagne that was “family owned and operated since 1901”. Outside of my responsibilities for the project, we also had an Owner, Viticulturist, and Enologist. The Viticulturist was in charge of the growing of the grapes, including determining the terroir (basically the conditions–environmental and human–that effect how a grape is grown), soil, temperature, and disease susceptibilities in the region. The Enologist was then in charge of describing the process of how we turned the grapes into wines. This included any pressing of grapes, maceration, fermentation, or aging. The Owner just oversaw everything that was going on, helped make decisions, and put the final paper together. Needless to say, we were all happy to see Thursday afternoon come, as that meant our project was officially DONE.
We broke for a lunch break around 11 am and all went down to Enoteca Molesini (the main wine shop) to order cases of wine to ship back home!! Marco gave us a really good discount, something like 15% off each bottle, so I ended up getting four bottles to send home that aren’t in America. I ordered the O’Lillo! from Baracchi Winery (the winery we went to with the guy with the white Prada pants), a Azienda Lisini Brunello di Montalcino (insert heart eye emoji here), Mazzei’s “Philip” Cabernet Sauvignon for my dad, and a Chianti Classico for my mom. I ended up very happy with my purchases š
We headed back up to class in the afternoon to finish up one last group presentation before having our last wine tasting lab (!!!) of red blends and super tuscans. I personally really enjoyed this lab, probably because it was all red wine.
Since this was our last Thursday in Cortona, we decided to go to the weekly free wine tasting that Marco had in the main piazza…but let’s be honest, we would’ve been there even if it wasn’t our last Thursday. After the tasting, we headed to dinner at Tonino’s, then naturally Lion’s Well which ended up being quite an…interesting…night as the Tonino’s waiters came as well. Hey guys, if you’re reading this…and understand English.
