Wine Tasting in Chianti!

Today was my first experience in Tuscany that was outside downtown Florence. Our school took four buses to a Chianti farm in the outskirts of Florence and we got to have a tour of a Tuscan castle and see the vineyards surrounding, along with the cellar inside, which was full of barrels of wine! So, we all went into this thinking we were just going to take a dixie cup and take a sip of wine, however, it was not like that at all! It felt like we were all sitting down to a banquet meal, and there were three different wines for us to try! One white, and two reds. They also gave us bread, amazing cheese and salami, yummmmy. So, for all of you wine drinkers at home, here is how the professionals "taste" wine. The first step is to lightly sniff the wine. This pretty much means you just run the glass across your nose and breath in. The second step is to take a biiig sniff of the wine. They said to basically stick your nose in the glass and breath it all in! The third step is to take a tiny sip and smack your lips together to "lightly taste it." The fourth and final step is to take a biiig gulp and breath in when you do it, to really get the full experience. Haha, and of course there's the swirling of the wine which I didn't quite catch, but it has something to do with the alcohol content...I think. It was interesting to learn about the wine making process and how to be able to really tell the difference between wines by doing the "four-step process." It was a fun day...up until 15 minutes before we left. For those of you who know my fear and loathing of throw-up, pay attention. We were all standing in line to go to the bathroom before we left the vineyard, and all of a sudden a girl behind me THROWS UP AND IT GETS ON MY SWEATER AND IN MY HAIR! Okay, so it wasn't a lot, but a few speckles is enough to make me shiver. I wasn't the only one who had wine leftovers on me, so that was nice that she didn't just aim for me...but still! I just bought this sweater and I really liked and now it's vomit-infected :( Barf! Well, that's the most exciting news of the day. We've got to get up early tomorrow for Cinque Terre, so we're going to make pasta for dinner, per normal, and hang around the apartment!!