While Class does not officially begin until Saturday, everyone decided to get to Rome a couple days early just in case anything went wrong. Since nothing major did go wrong (although a few people were forced to check their bags), everyone had a free day in Rome before the official start of class.

Most of the students went off in groups to explore the city. I, unfortunately, was still sick and stayed in bed most of the day.

Goals for today:

• Travel from Rome to Montepulciano: need to get Eurail passes validated, catch the right train, get cars from Chiusi to Montepulciano (no bus because it's a holiday)
• Get settled into apartments and town and eat local food

  

  

• Class dinner reservation at Aquaccheta: Tuscan steaks, crostini, veggies, learning how to share

Goals for today:

• Go shopping with a subset of students, introduce them to Italian grocery stores and how to shop
• Discussion of assigned reading: Viticulture (ch 2)
• Tour and wine tasting at Cantina Ricci (including light lunch paired with wines)
• Assist in making dinner with the same students, describe what was made and why

  

Comments:

• We found out that there was a local parade aournd 10 am, so we shifted the class discussion to take place during dinner, this did not work very well since the apartments' seating did not allow everyone to sit together
• Because of the parade, most of the stores were not open at their posted times, so we ended up trying to shop at 8 am with everything closed. After the wine tasting, we tried again, and ended up hitting ~4 stores (some multiple times). We should have just gone to the supermarket.
• The Parade was super cool and a nice introduction to town and the idea of contrade
• The wine tasting was an amazing experience, we tasted 4 wines (including one dessert), and discussed how to taste and what to look for. The food pairings were also a nice introduction on what foods go with what wine (specifically rich reds).
• Dinner was finnochia, caprese salad, grilled asparagus, sauteed zucchini, pici with tomato sauce and contucci and vin santo for dessert. All paired with some of the wines from our tasting today.
• On a personal note, I was still not over my cold and was pushing myself way too hard and doing too much, not giving my body enough time to fight off whatever I had. On the bright side, Drew's cold (which everyone, including me, eventually caught) was different (and less severve) than what I had, so I'm glad nobody caught my cold.

Goals for today:

• Travel to Pienza to learn about the local cheese and to see another small Tuscan hill town
• Discuss Tuscany section from the "Wine Bible"
• Shop with 2 more students and make dinner

Comments:

• We had class discussion in Pienza, right after arriving in town, next to the old church. This worked out much better.
• We split up for lunch in Pienza, since we wanted the students to see the town and we didn't know of any restaurants big enough for everyone. Some made good choices, others needed more guidance.
• We shopped at the grocery store in Pienza since it was right across from the bus stop. This worked well.
• Dinner was melen and prosciutto, steamed artichokes, fennel & orange salad follwed by pici primavera and pienza cheese with honey for dessert. We also took the leftover steak bones from Saturday and made a stock.
• Today my illness came back with a vengence and I missed most of the evening. We also had an issue with the plumbing in one of the Apartments, so a bit of a rocky day.

Goals for today:

• Walk out of town to see the local vineyards

  

• Discuss section on wine production from the Chemistry of Wine book
• Group lunch at location TBD
• Shop with 2 more students and make dinner

Comments:

• We had class discussion in the living room of the downstairs apartment, this worked pretty well
• We had nice weather for most of the walk (luckily, after lots of rain the last few days)

  

• About midway through our planned walk we found a winery we didn't know about. We had a fabulous tour where he talked about the vineyards and the winemaking process and then we tasted and purchased some wine. The tour fit in perfectly to illustrate what we had just read and discussed about the wine making process.

  

• Folks were hungry after the wine tasting, so we went back the way we came and had lunch at La Grotta.
• After a quick, and needed, nap, I went grocery shopping with the final 2 students and then we started cooking. We had bruschette with tomatoes, ricotta Pienza with honey, leftover steack and porchetta followed by risotto with sharp pecorino and panforte for dessert. All paired with wines from the earlier tasting.
• At this point, there were some issues with budget and communications between the 2 instructors, but nothing too major and not unexpected for the first time a class is taught

Goals for these days:

• Give students (and faculty) an opportuntity to decompress, destress, and get away from each other for a while.
• Allow students to explore on their own (some took a bus to Sienna, others walked 2-3 hours to Montefollonico, and some just enjoyed Montepulciano)

Comments:

• Students prefered more structure on days off, and often didn't know what to do.
• Tyler and some of the students were now sick with whatever Drew had. Fortunately, it only seems to last for about a day.
• We also needed these days off to work on class stuff like the budget and travel plans for the next stage of class.

Goals for today:

• Students demonstrate that they could shop for, cook, and clean up after a 3-course meal with wine pairings

  

• Students present what they made, why they made it, and why they chose the wine served
• We also discussed our days off, what types of food we ate in Italy and differences between eating and drinking in Italy vs. the US

  

Comments:

• The students made asparagus with prosciutto and caprese bruschetta as appetizers, and Risotto cakes with cheese sauce, chingale sausage, and salad for the main course.
• The students did a great job on all the shopping, cooking, and cleaning.

  

Goals for today:

• Visit a larger city in Tuscany
• Begin travel to our next region in Alf, Germany

Comments:

• We needed to be out of our apartments by 11 am and needed to be in Florence for an overnight train to Germany, by 10 pm. Half the students wanted the entire day in Florence, so they took the early bus to Chiusi and train to Florence, arriving around 1 pm. The rest took the later train arriving in Florence ~ 3pm. Everyone had to check bags in the train station and we all met for dinner at 7 before going to the train station to get our bags and our train.
• Unfortunately, the train was delayed, which threw off most of our trains the next day to Alf. Everyone arrived safe and sound, but traveling with a group is certainly stressful.

Goals for today:

• Arrive in Munich on the overnight train from Florence, change trains to Mannheim, then Koblenz, and finally arrive in Bullay around 3 pm
• Walk from Bullay train station to Ferry, then from Ferry to house in Alf
• Bikes delivered to house ~ 6 pm
• Find dinner, note that many restaurants are closed on Sunday, maybe try Bella Vista?

• We missed our first train out of Munich, based on the delay in Florence, so we ended up with connections in Wurtzburg and Koblenz. In Wurtzburg, several students thought they knew the right train number, but were wrong, so they got a group on the wrong platform. Fortunately, we found them and got them on the right train just in time.
• We had our group dinner at Bella Vista because it was the only open place in town. No one wanted Germany's version of Italian food after leaving Italy, so most folks got schnitzel.
• On a personal note, by now I had cold #2 (the one passed on to everyone from Drew), so I was pretty much out for the night.

Goals for today:

• Train to Cochem and bike back, viewing vineyards along the way

  

• Shopping and preparing dinner

Comments:

• We planned on doing 4 things in Cochem: wine tasting, lunch, grocery shopping & visit a mustard shop. The winery wasn't open and lunch was so long we skipped the mustard, which was good because the bike ride took longer than expected. We broke up into 2 groups: the fast group got back to Alf just before 5 pm while the slow group didn't get back until nearly 6. While long, the bike ride was gorgeous and we really got to see how steep the Mosel vineyards are.
• Note that stores in Germany don't take non-chip credit cards and rarely give receipts. Most transactions equired having ready cash on hand. Much more than expected.
• Originally we were planning to have a class discussion today, but with the long bike ride, I'm glad we cancelled it.

  

• Tyler and Drew found a weingut near our house that was open and bought the Riesling for dinner. We were able to compare and contrast the different sweetness levels of the wine and how they paired with our first home-cooked meal
• Dinner was sausages, spreads, asparagus, and I don't recall.

We tried to keep free days consecutive, but we had to accomodate availability at wineries for tours later in the week, so this week's free days were Tuesday and Friday.

Goals for today:

• Discuss The Mosel section in the Wine Bible
• Winery tour and tasting
• Shopping and preparing dinner

Comments:

• We had class discussion in the house's dining room. So happy to finally have a table we can all fit around. It made the discussion much easier. We were also able to compare the reading to what we saw on yesterday's bike ride.
• We biked the short (~30 min) ride to Zell where we joined an American family getting our winery tour, where we learned about the different levels of German wine.

  

• We had a group lunch in Zell, much better than our group dinner the first night, but still a bit unsure about what to order and what we'd end up with.
• Dinner was beef goulash, salad, and apple cake based on some family recipies.

Goals for today:

• Walking tour of vineyards in Merl

  

• Shopping and preparing dinner

Comments:

• We biked to Zell for lunch at the local Imbuss and finally had a great meal of sausages (Rindswurst) and beer. We followed that up with ice cream, so we could compare the German version of ice cream with Italian gelato. Suprisingly big difference.
• This was probably our best tour of the entire trip, as it was the only one in a vineyard and not just the winery. The winemaker walked with us showing us how the vines are planted, trained, and harvested. She shared a lot about the region's history and how hard it is to make a living making wine. Then we saw some videos of her and her family harvesting the wine as we tasted several wines. Again, this was a great example of matching the experiential learning in the field with what had be previously read about, discussed, and viewed from the bikes.

  

• Dinner was grilled sausages, rolls, roasted cabbage and carrots, and the rest of the asparagus with cheese sause.

Goals for today:

• Students demonstrate that they could shop for, cook, and clean up after a 3-course meal with wine pairings

  

• Students present what they made, why they made it, and why they chose the wine served
• We also discussed our days off, what types of food we ate in Germany and differences between eating and drinking in Germany vs. Italy and the US

Comments:

• The students made salad, pretzels with mustard, tomato soup with ham and cheese toasts, and a cherry chocolate cake for dessert (purchased).

  

• The students did a great job on all the shopping and cooking. Living together was definately starting to wear on them, especially when it came to cleaning. If we teach a class like this again, we need to assign clean up crew even on days off.

Goals for today:

• Check out of the house, get to new house
• Class dinner at Bistrot de Tontons

Assignments:

• This was another hectic travel day, but very worthwhile to get to another gorgeous small town. We had to walk to the train station, take a train to Saarbruecken and another to Paris. In paris, we took the metro to a different train station. Then, 2 more trains, first to Angers then, finally to Saumer. Then we had to walk to our rented house across the river.
• Having dinner reservations in a close location was great and kept the stress level down a bit. Plus, dinner was fabulous, with escargo, beef tartare, lamb, fish, and duck and everyone sharing. The wine (red for a change) was also amazing.

  

Goals for today:

• Pick up bikes
• Discuss Loire section of the wine Bible
• Winery tour and tasting
• Group lunch

Comments:

• Originally I'd planned to also visit an oil factory, but it had moved out of town too far to bike to. Also, it was probably better to have only 1 thing to do per day.
• After picking up the bikes, we biked to a park on the island for class discussion. What a gorgeous location. We discussed their individual books instead of the Loire section.

  

• Lunch was a fixed menu at a bistro on the island
• The tour of the winery was great, since it was a sparkling wine house, we got to see something new compared to previous winery tours, so it really built up

  

• Dinner was roasted chicken (as a mild food to compare with White, Red, and Rose wines) with salad and bread and chocolate and pears for dessert.

  

  

Goals for today:

• Shop with 2 groups of students, one for picnic lunch, other for dinner
• Bike to vineyards and trogldyte caves

  

• Picnic lunch
• Wine tasting

Comments:

• The bike ride was fun, but the heat did get to me
• The picnic dinner included 2 prepared salads, fruit, tomatoes, rillettes, cheese, and baguettes.

  

• Before lunch, we discussed the Loire section of the Wine Bible and students finished presenting their individual books.
• Dinner was quiche, salad, and french pastries for dessert.

  

• This may have been the best day in terms of matching reading with experience. One student described the geology of the Loire valley after we rode bikes through caves created by those geologic processes. Then we visited a winery that made four different wines from the same grape, but in different soils (that had been described in the readings). So we read, discussed, saw, and then tasted the geology around us.

Goals for today:

• Students shop for, prepare, and clean up after a french meal.
• Discuss how the class went and what was learned.
• Last day of class.

  

Assignments:

• We decided to have the students prepare lunch instead of dinner, so that we could have a celebratory group dinner afterward.
• Lunch was bread, salumi, cheese, fruit salad, omelets, and chocolate cake, pears, and blue cheese for dessert with a dessert wine.
• Dinner was at a nice restaurant in town and gave the students an opportunity for a fancy meal.

  

Goals for today:

• Check out of the house and travel our separate ways.