We then sat down to a meal, eight to a table, and wine glasses were presented. Then began the wine tasting and it was unlike any wine tasting we’d done before or since. Wine number one arrived and we slurped. Wine number two arrived and we slurped. Wine number one came back around to fill glasses up so we slurped again. Wine number three was also accompanied by wine number two for anyone who wanted more. Wines four and five were presented and wines one through three came around again as well in case anyone wanted a top up, and we did. Wine six was not alone, as I’m sure you can guess. I would estimate that we each came close to drinking two bottles of wine by the time it finished. We were quite merry.

Uruguayan Tango

We’d already seen a fabulous Argentine Tango when we were in Buenos Aires and now we were treated the variation of the dance performed in Uruguay (which to our eyes was the same). The tango dancers were wonderful.

At the end of the performance the two tango dancers approached some of the people who were watching to see if anyone wanted to get up and dance. I was approached. I said yes. I blame the wine. I apologised profusely for standing on the foot of my tango partner. There is photographic evidence of me “dancing” the tango in Uruguay. No, you may not see it.

We’d been sitting with Leandro, one of the videographers on the Star Princess cruise ship and that meant that video was taken of the occasion too. Upon sitting back down I turned to him and said “You will be nice and edit me out of any video, won’t you?” He smiled. On a later excursion we bumped into a couple we’d met around the ship a few times who excitedly told me they’d seen me dancing on the big screen as clips of the trips were played in the theatre while waiting to depart so, yes, there’s video evidence of me “dancing” the tango in Uruguay too. Bloody Leandro.

Now, regular readers of the travelogues on this site might have just spotted something amiss with the size of the scroll bar on the right side of the screen just about now.

Mark… I’m scared. Is this going to be a short post? I mean, a short post for you?

Do not be afraid my child, but, yes, this is going to be a short post.

But why!? We don’t come here for tiny amounts of SEO-friendly text repeating the same phrases from your post’s title over and over again! That’s what we’ve got the rest of the travel posts on the internet for! We come for the seemingly unending drivel that you can’t stop typing and the total overuse of photos in travel diaries when only a handful will do. Don’t say you’ve become one of… them!

No, panic ye not! There is a simple explanation and it is thus: there’s only so much you can say about eating cold meats and drinking wine. That’s all.

I’m still worried, Mark. Slippery slope and all that.

I’ll try to pad things out with fictional conversations loosely connected to this brief visit to the winery. Try not to let the fear overwhelm you.

Well, okay then.

The winery wasn’t very far from San Gimignano so the journey from there was in the vicinity of half an hour. Our bus pulled up at the entrance to a fenced field and waited for a large gate to slowly slide open. We then drove into a small parking area and disembarked close to either an homage to Arnold Rimmer or a helicopter landing pad. Probably the latter. Fences, automatic barriers, and places to pick up and drop off helicopter passengers: yeah, this place had the feel of money about it.

We were then greeted by the owner of the Tenuta Torciano winery, Pierluigi Giachi, who took us among some of the vines to tell us a little bit about the history of the winery, the types of grapes they used and wines they produced, and to point out all the hills around that we could see, all of which belonged to his family too. Yeah, this place had a real feel of money about it.

From the ordered rows of grapes on vines we were then led to where we’d be commencing the wine tasting. This involved passing through a small but perfectly maintained garden area dotted with the sorts of statues you associate with the Mediterranean region, occasional benches, tables, and a few gazebos too. Tenuta Torciano looked to be well set-up to accommodate wine tasting groups of any size and appeared to be a lovely setting for a wedding celebration too which, of course, they are more than happy to provide you with quotes for.

Our group was led to a covered area next to a building where tables were laid out with small plates of cold meats, salads, cheeses, and biscuits. There wasn’t a lot to eat so for a full day’s cruise excursion that’s worth bearing in mind if you’re one of those people who feels the need to have a proper lunch. I’d hazard a guess that it was the wine that was the main draw of the trip for the majority of people (and certainly for us), though, so we were absolutely fine with what was offered.

Wine tastings are simple affairs and you quite likely know what to expect from one but, very briefly, you receive small amounts of wine in a glass and you taste them. Slightly less briefly, there are some accompanying explanations of flavours and smells you’re supposed to pick up (we struggle a lot here), –

It just tastes like red wine. It’s nice.

No peppery edge? No blueberry notes?

Red. I’m getting red.

Okay, well try the white. You should be picking up vanilla tones at the back of your mouth and around the front of the tongue there is a little lime, no?

Er… it smells like ham and tastes like liquid ham strained through an unwashed sock.

Really!? Oh, wait, no, you’re right. That is what Chardonnay is supposed to taste like.

– and with some wines you compare a sip with and without any food beforehand to see how the various salts, sweetnesses, and textures alter your tastebuds’ perception of what you’re throwing down your throat while pretending to be sophisticated.

This wine tasting also included some olive oil tastings (they make their own) and a special mention must be made of their truffle oil: ooh! Gorgeous!

Two elements of this particular wine tasting were a little different from others in which we’ve partaken. Firstly, there was an explanation in how to hold the wine glass and drink. Should you decide to visit Tenuta Torciano then you can feign a better upbringing than you really have by following these steps:

• Take the glass by the stem using the left hand.
• Transfer the glass to the right hand, again holding by the stem.
• Pull the glass to your chest and swirl the glass in small circles to make the wine dizzy.
• Lift the glass and sniff deeply, placing your mouth in the open rim to draw in the aromas.
• Take a sip and coat the inside of your mouth and surface of your tongue with the wine before swallowing.
• Take another sip and this time hold it in your mouth and draw some air over it by gently reverse-whistling.
• Transfer the glass to the left hand and set it down.
• Repeat until drunk.

Secondly, there was an amusing explanation regarding how to drink dessert wine. Dessert wine isn’t something we’d normally drink on account of us being sweet enough already (shut up) but we were given a tale about how hard cake was used in conjunction with dessert wine to both soften the food and alter the taste of the drink. This was acted out with the help of two of our fellow cruise passengers, Canadians who we’d met the day before when boating along the Italian coast and with whom we’d shared a table in France the day before that when they’d polished off a few bottles of wine between them at lunch. We liked them. You can see video of this dessert wine and cake tale of young love in the entertaining video below (temporarily removed).

And that was our visit to Tenuta Torciano winery complete. There isn’t a lot you can say about a wine tasting if you’ve done one before because they all have to follow more-or-less the same process but each one has something to make it stand out and recommend and with this particular visit it would be the genial hosts and entertainment from the accompanying tale. If you’re travelling in this part of Italy on your own then you can’t just turn up at this winery if you want to taste the wine; you’ll need to make an appointment so check their website as to how and how much that will be. As part of a cruise excursion we liked this a lot and can certainly recommend it whether you have or haven’t experienced a wine tasting before.

Our final stop on this day’s tour from the ship would be to Pisa and that will be covered in the next travelogue in this Emerald Princess cruise series.

First up was the Aloe Vera Museum, located in the small town of Yaiza on the southern edge of Timanfaya National Park. I won’t lie; we weren’t expecting much other than a sales pitch here, but the museum – which is free to enter – put on a demonstration of cutting the plants and showing off the natural aloe vera goo (I think that’s the technical term) as well as rubbing it into arms of anyone who showed an interest in having goo on their arms. As I mentioned, fairly interesting, and surprisingly so, and enough that we did take a look to see what sort of aloe vera products they might have for sale. The answer was a lot, but nothing caught our eyes enough to part with money. That’s not true for others on our tour who ended up wandering back to the bus with bags of stuff. It’s always nice to see cruise groups contributing to the economy of places they visit.

Of more interest to us was the vineyard, or the Lanzarote equivalent of a vineyard, of Bodega La Geria. Circular depression in the volcanic ash and soil, or areas surrounded by low, circular walls protect the vines of a number of varieties of local grapes, the most prevalent of which is the Malvasía Volcánica. The elevation, underground heat, protection from the worst of the wind, and the cool Atlantic breeze make for a versatile and unique grape, and for some sweet wines. A little too sweet for our tastes, if I’m being honest, and we’re red fans rather than white anyway, but it was lovely to see how the wine was made here.

These two short visits concluded our half-day excursion on Lanzarote so that all that remained would be to head back to Arrecife where Ventura was docked and to head off to the next island, due to be Madeira. That was the plan, but the plan was about to get torn up and scattered, and you can read about that in the next post in this series.