Monday the 26th was the start of our third (and final!!) full week in Cortona, which was crazy to think about! We learned about food and wine pairing in our morning lecture, sangiovese wines in our afternoon lecture, then tasted Tuscan red wines in lab. Tuesday we had a field trip to Antinori-La Braccesca vineyard and winery, which was beautiful. The land was so green and looked so fresh, and the decor on the inside of the building we had our wine tasting and lunch in was just so relaxing and homey it would be impossible to be in a bad mood. We had a tour of the facilities where grapes are crushed, destemmed, fermented, and aged before going into the tasting portion of our visit. I felt like we were in a very modern version of a ski lodge, which is weird. it was just all so sleek and clean, but had wooden accents that were the perfect mix between swanky and homey. We taste six wines, four of them were served with our lunch. The lunch was amazing, we had a nice selection of antipasti options, a great primi pasta plate, and an arugula salad with beef. The dessert was the icing on the cake, fresh strawberries topped with strawberries and cream ice cream. Divine. This was one of my favorite field trips we went on thanks to the relaxing environment, wonderful view, and delicious food and wine. After lunch we headed to the terrace overlooking the vineyard to take some pictures before heading back to Cortona. We got back to Cortona for dinner and to watch the UGA Theater program perform their version of Taming Of the Shrew in the local theater, Teatro Signorelli. The theater was intricately decorated and relatively small, which made for a more intimate setting.
