Off the Wagon

That's The Intrepid One leaving this morning after 36 hours of virtually solid boozing. The Landy is full of Libyan rocks, sand and Italian wine.

This was one of the smarter bars.




 And this was a serious Barbera that we got stuck in to much later.
Now for some rest I think. Mamma mia.

Wine, wine and more wine

Our order for wine from Veneto had to be faxed by the end of February so in distinctive Italian style an ad-hoc supper was organised for the evening of the 29th with all the participating members of the buying group to decide who was having what, who was prepared to share half a demijohn and so on. Above is Smooth Tony's price list. We faxed over our order at around 11 o'clock (I think). To tell the truth the wheels started to come off at a bit earlier as we were so keen to re-sample some of his wonderful wines that a lot of the detail escapes me. I believe I have ordered one demijohn of Cabernet Franc, one demijohn of Sauvignon Bianco and half a demijohn of Pinot Grigio plus some cases of Prosecco. I'll wait for the lorry to turn up in two weeks and discover that I put my hand up for six demijohns of everything.

Sideways it ain't

Because last winter was so mild, grape picking in 2007 took place much earlier than usual which meant that our wine tasting visit to Dodgy Tony (above in mid-pour) was brought forward by a month or so. Tony is based just north east of Venice and to be quite frank the landscape is pretty dull and flat. But his wines are anything but dull and flat, being extremely drinkable and, hurrah, CHEAP! This year our dawn raid got off to a flying start with the first samples being drawn off from the concrete vats in his yard at around 10 o'clock in the morning. California this isn't and we all stand around in his office/kitchen and start slurping wine and stuffing our face with local sausage grilled on his very open fire. I sampled about nine different types; from the little I remember of the morning, his Cabernet Franc came out top of his reds and his Sauvignon Bianco is just so fresh and clean, I'm going to have to take a demijohn (56 litres) of that too. I shall also get a half-demijohn of his Pino Grigio and three cases of Prosecco. That should see me through to the end of July. After this we all trooped off to a local restaurant for lunch. Bloody hell.
I think Dodgy Tony may be a little unfair; his rather stylish scarf means I may have to change his moniker to Smooth Tony. The old bags* with our party always go a bit unnecessary when he gets out his corkscrew.

This is a shot of a couple of Tony's various concrete wine tanks; very 1950s.
*Mrs Combo not present, I hasten to add.