{"id":2032,"date":"2015-07-12T08:26:41","date_gmt":"2015-07-12T00:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/?p=2032"},"modified":"2019-02-03T15:47:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-03T07:47:36","slug":"southwestern-tuscany-a-day-of-wine-pasta-and-wall-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/2015\/07\/12\/southwestern-tuscany-a-day-of-wine-pasta-and-wall-views\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwestern Tuscany – A Day of Wine, Pasta and Wall Views"},"content":{"rendered":"

Southwestern Tuscany, namely the province of Grosseto in the Maremma area, \u00a0is\u00a0not as well visited as the rest of the region\u00a0but I was out here in April to pay a visit to a winery and found some great food and views along the way. This was our fist stop in a wine tour of Italy,\u00a0and the highlights here include a visit to the Mantellassi winery, the walled cities of Pitigliano and Magliano and the best tortello of our trip.<\/p>\n

We stayed at the Borgo Magliano which I imagine would be filled with families in the summer but as it was still cold, we had the hotel to ourselves. We had a fantastic spaghetti alla chimera\u00a0for lunch here, which followed some smoked fish that we found way too salty for our tastes. The latter is a reminder that we were on the coast of the Tyrrhenian\u00a0Sea.<\/p>\n

\"Borgo<\/a>
We stayed here at Borgo Magliano<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Seafood<\/a>
Highlight of a simple lunch. Spaghetti alla chitarra with shrimp in a pesto sauce.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before heading to Mantellassi, we made a stop in Pitigliano, which is a small medieval walled town known for its Etruscan caves and carved roads. Alas, I didn’t have a chance to walk along these narrow\u00a0paths, but did have wander around town. The city also features a\u00a016th century\u00a0aqueduct built by the de Medici.<\/p>\n

\"View<\/a>
Pitigliano<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Pitigliano<\/a>
Entry into the old town centre of Pitigliano<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We were going to have\u00a0a tasting of Mantellassi’s wines with dinner, but dropped in on the winery first from where there’s also a great view of the surrounding hills.\u00a0Mantellassi, a\u00a0relatively small producer by Tuscan standards, is best known for\u00a0its Morellino di Scansano wine (red). Morellino is a variety of the Sangiovese grape found in the Maremma area. Also interesting is its\u00a0production of red wine made solely of the Ciliegiolo grape. Ciliegiolo is normally used as a component of other Tuscan reds such as Chianti.<\/p>\n

\"Fattoria<\/a>
Mantellassi’s driveway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fattoria<\/a>
Looking at Mantellassi’s main production facility<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fattoria<\/a>
Hills surrounding Mantellassi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dinner with our tasting of Mantellassi’s wines was\u00a0at a wonderful\u00a0traditional restaurant in Magliano called La Poventa. If you’re in the area, I think a\u00a0visit\u00a0to Magliano for a view of the sun setting from the city walls followed by dinner is ideal. From Magliano’s walls, you can get a view all the way out to the Tyrrhenian Sea.<\/p>\n

\"Surround<\/a>
From vineyards to the sea – an expansive view from Magliano’s wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Magliano<\/a>
Magliano’s city wall – great viewing platform of the surrounding hills<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Magliano is a fairly small city so finding La Poventa is straightforward – it’s just further down from the cathedral square.<\/p>\n

\"Magliano's<\/a>
The square in front of Magliano’s cathedral<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Ristorante<\/a>
The entrance to La Poventa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once again, the pasta was a stand out. One of the specials for the night was a tortello (like a ravioli) filled with spinach and ricotta and served with a wild boar ragu. This was probably the best tortello we had on our trip with the pasta being silky smooth.<\/p>\n

\"La<\/a>
The tortello – ricotta and spinach inside with a wild boar sauce<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was very much a wild boar night as we also had the pappardelle with wild boar ragu and a braised wild boar. Also interesting, albeit not as good as the wild boar, was a pork shoulder cooked in milk.<\/p>\n

\"La<\/a>
Pappardelle with a wild boar sauce<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The braised wild boar was accompanied with potato chips but these were home made chips and thicker cut. The extra bit of potato makes the difference. Really good!<\/p>\n

\"La<\/a>
Braised wild boar with home made potato chips<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our meal was accompanied by a tasting of Mantellassi’s wines. I’ve had\u00a0Mantellassi’s Le Sentinelle\u00a0wine before – probably its most popular product (made of the afore mentioned Morellino grape). It’s a medium bodied red that’s nice with meat based or richer\u00a0pasta dishes and most meat. But before that, we tried the Maestrale, the wine made primarily of the Ciliegiolo\u00a0grape. This was a relatively young red wine with minimal aging and this gave it a light note. I’d put this in the cheap and cheerful category.<\/p>\n

\"Fattoria<\/a>
Some of the bottles tasted from Mantellassi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ve never been keen\u00a0on Cabernet Sauvignon only wines – generally find these a bit too full bodied\u00a0for my tastes (I prefer blends) – so I liked the Punton del Sorbo least. The Querciolaia, which is made of Alicante Bouschet grapes reminds me of Australian shiraz. We also had a bottle of the Mantellassi Lucomone, a crispy white made of Vermentino grapes with lunch earlier. So of the five tastings we had, I think good value can be found in the Lucomone and Le Sentinelle wines – nice bottles to have\u00a0to accompany a casual meal that starts with seafood followed by meat.<\/p>\n

Alas, I’m not truly a dessert person – I recall that this was decent but I can’t remember what we had. Probably the wine was having its impact but also because I was still salivating over\u00a0the tortello. It was a great first day to our wine tour.<\/p>\n

Mantellassi’s website:<\/strong>\u00a0http:\/\/www.fattoriamantellassi.it\/inglese\/storia_ing.html<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southwestern Tuscany, namely the province of Grosseto in the Maremma area, \u00a0is\u00a0not as well visited as the rest of the region\u00a0but I was out here in April to pay a visit to a winery and found some great food and views along the way. This was our fist stop in a wine tour of Italy,\u00a0and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,19,95,123],"tags":[43,29,31,35],"class_list":["post-2032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-italy-europe","category-italy-itinerary","category-italy-tuscany","tag-featured","tag-italy","tag-wine","tag-wine_tasting","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2032"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2057,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions\/2057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}