Today was going to be a day in the heart of the processo region. Where the best grapes grow. Unfortunately for us, one of the key factors is lots of rain …
It was a very wet day. We started out in the rain – never the best way to start a walk. Ignoring the inviting coffee shop, we headed up a hill, pausing in someone’s garage when it was just too wet. The “elevenses” place was actually just a sheltered area, with no coffee. So, a decision was made to retreat to the staring point, head into the coffee shop & get the bus back to the hotel, abandoning the rest of the walk.
Later, we went back (in the bus) to where we would have had lunch; it was a ‘pub with no host’ – a small farmhouse where you could select your own goodies, and an honesty box. It also featured just up the hill, the famous processo machine. Which we tested, of course.
Finally, we had a visit to a winery, to see the machinery (there wasn’t anything really exciting happening at this time of year, as it was either in the fermentation tanks, or in the bottles – but they told us all about what happens during the rather short season for the main part of the process. Unlike Champagne the 2nd fermentation, which is under pressure is large tanks. (Champers does it in the bottle). They’d laid on a lovely spread of nibbles, gave us tastings of a number of different Proseccos. At the end, they presented us all with a bottle. Not sure which one it was, as it wasn’t one of the ones we tasted. It worked – Janine & I ordered a box of a mix of some of those we’d tested.
