Friday – Valpolicello

After lunch we went on a bus trip organised by the language school. There were most of us Australians and about 10 others. First we went to a small town in the Valpolicello wine area NW of here called San Georgio di Valpolicello. This was a lovely small , fairly unadorned church built on the same site as a pre-christian gathering place. There were 12th century frescoes on the walls. We went in a back way, past the choir boy robes. It was obviously still in regular use.

Next to the church, the only commercial building in the town seemed to be the bar/café/restaurant/community meeting place where we had a nice fizzy not-too-sweet lemon drink and a delicious almond biscuit.

We walked down the hill to the bus and went onto a winery. This was in the adjacent Bardolino area. Apparently both bardolino and valpolicello are 2 different styles of red wine made from the same 3 grapes, Corvina Veronese, Rondinella and Molinara. Not that I have heard of any of the 3. A lady told us about the different wines that her winery made, showed us some old equipment, showed us the new bottling machinery through a glass window, showed us some of their vines and took us into their cantina , talked to us about the barrels and then gave us a taste of 2 of their wines.

The 3rd stop was the town of Bordelino on the shore of Lake Garda – about 10 minutes drive away from Lazise, the town we went to the previous weekend. It was another small oldish town that seems now to exist for tourists. The gelato was good!