Rita was able to find a T-Shirt that she liked.

On our return trip to Greve, we stopped by the Panzano wine festival, which is a smaller but equally as good wine festival as the one in Greve. I think we have now tasted about every red wine in Chianti!   Chianti does produce some rose wine that is also very tasty and a tiny quantity of white wine, which has kept Rita happy.

All of the wine we have tasted is from previous year harvests. But, when we returned to Greve we found the Wineries/Vineyards beginning to start the harvest of grapes for next year’s wine. The leaves on the vines have started to turn brown, all the excess grape bunches have been cut away to fall on the ground and what remains are huge bunches of low hanging grapes on the bottom of the vines. Of course, the grapes have turned a brilliant purple or in some cases almost black. It is an exciting time here in Greve and you can feel it in the air.

We have made a couple of quick trips to Florence in the last three weeks. We love “KOKO”, a Japanese restaurant. It provides us a change of tastes from pasta and beef or pork. The Fusion Bar continues to be a great place for a cosmopolitan or two before heading off to dinner.

With our stay in Greve winding down, we revisited Lamole in the daytime to see the view. You will remember that the last time we visited Lamole for a dinner, I got lost, thanks to GPS, and Rita has not let me drive since because I raced to make our dinner reservations 45 minutes late. The daytime drive to Lamole was beautiful, and slower, we had great views to Panzano and we thought we could even make out San Gimignano in the distance some 27 kilometers or 16.777 miles away.

We also returned to Panzano yesterday, to eat at Dario’s Officina Della Bistecca. Wow!!!! He is a showman. The meal starts with appetizers in the butcher shop, blaring rock music and Dario, himself, holding court. Then, the group of about 20 plus moved upstairs to a dining room which has a wood burning grill. Once seated, the king of BEEF, starts the meal that consists of, what else, beef! There are 5 courses including beef tartare, rump steak, panzanese steak, rib-eye steak and T-bone steak. Everything, except the tartare, is grilled before your eyes. The beef was cooked as huge chunks of beef. The largest I have ever seen. As they take each course off the grill to serve, a guy comes out of the kitchen, holds the meat high over his head and chants something in Italian at the top of his lungs, I assume blessed is the king of meats, BEEF, and “TO BEEF OR NOT TO BEEF” and may all enjoy our cooking!!! Bon appetit!