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(00:20):
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Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host, Melanie Young,
and I am recording the show from the beautiful city
of Orvieto in Umbria. It is in central Italy and
it's known as the green Heart of Italy because it's
surrounded by beautiful vineyards and forests and farmland. We are
(01:02):
bordered by Tuscany, Abruzzo, Latzia and Amelia Romana. I have
been here for nearly two weeks, including Roma, learning about
the wines of Orvieto and Montefalco, which is about an
hour and a half north of Orvieto. So today's show
is going to be a quick snapshot on why you
(01:22):
want to visit this beautiful area, winds to try and
of course the foods I've eaten. It'll be short because
I'm heading to Rome soon, but I think you're going
to love it, and I think that you will love Umbria. So,
as I said, Umbria is in the central part of Italy.
It's known as Green Italy is actually not bordered by
(01:43):
any body of water but the ocean. Well, actually the sea,
the terranean sea is about an hour and a half
away to the west, and then you can go to
a Bruzzo to the sea about an hour and a
half to the east. So it's very centrally located. It's
about how between Rome and Florence. We flew into Rome
(02:03):
and we're going to be taking a about an hour
and ten minute train to Rome later today. Why do
I love Omria, Well, first of all, I love Tuscany,
and Tuscany is just literally a wave away, about maybe
an hour or less to the west. But Umbria is
a little more Bucolic, less touristed, maybe less frenetic in
(02:28):
the summer, and boy is it crazy busy in the summer.
The wines are fantastic. So I'm going to start with Montefalco,
where I was about a week ago. We went to Montefalco,
which is actually a name of a region as well
as the name of a beautiful hilltop medieval city where
we stayed that is so walkable with cobblestone streets and
(02:48):
amazing restaurants and stores. You will love this picturesque city.
It's called Montefalco. It's about an hour or so from Spiletto,
about an hour or so from Orvieto, to the north
of Orvieto. So what do I love about Montefalco. Well,
I'm going to start with the wines. Montefalco d Sagrantino
(03:09):
is a DOCG denomination or aginny guaranteea di colotad controlata wine,
so the highest quality. It is a rich, deep red wine,
a little bit higher at alcohol, really great with game
and meat, portuccini, the truffles that are known for this area,
(03:30):
and historically they used to make it a big centerpiece
of the Sunday family meal. So Montefalco de Sagrantino, really
it's Montefalco means Falcon mountain and sagra sacred wine. It
was the wine of the popes and the bishops. It
was so important to them. You will love this deep
(03:51):
red wine. If you want something somewhat lighter, you'll like
Montefalco Rosso, which is a blend of San Giove, which
is the same red grape you'll find in Tuscany, and
Sagrantino a little bit lighter but not much, a little
bit lighter in stone and just lovely. The white wine
(04:12):
you'll try here is called Trebiano spolatina. Now Trebiano is grown,
it's a white grape. It's grown in a lot of
regions of Italy, including Trebiana, Tuscana and elsewhere. But Spolatina
is what distinguishes the sense of place with this aromatic
white grape. Spoletto is a nearby town, very famous for
(04:35):
the International Festival of the Arts. There's also a Spiletto
in Charleston, South Carolina. So this is a white grape
really designated to a sense of place, much like Montefalco.
Sagrantino is dedicated to a sensive place of Montefalco, the
town and the docg region. Spolatina, which I like to
(04:56):
call it, is very aromatic. You can a lot of pineapple, honey,
white flowers, camameal notes in it, so it's if you
like aromatic, slightly lower alcohol wines, you'll love Spolatino. There's
also Gnakatto. Gnaketto is also a light white wine. Sometimes
(05:17):
they're mixed or you can get it as a single variety.
Also very popular dry white wine, a little slightly less
aromatic than Spilatino, but it still has a lot of aroma.
Crisp and dry. Now what do you eat? Well, obviously
this is central Italy, so you're gonna get a lot
of wonderful beef, the famous Kianina beef, Beiftecca. The steaks.
(05:42):
You're gonna get wild boor stew. You're going to get lamb,
you're gonna get pork. I'm a vegetarian, so it's a
little tricky when I come here. However, it is truffle
center Gentali. We'll say truffle Gentali. So tartuf are the
black truffles that you find in a Maria. One of
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the most famous producers and foragers is are Bonnie. You
can actually get her Bonni truffles in the United States.
I've actually gone trufle hunting with her. Bonny. It's so
much fun. So what you get is a tagliatelly or
another form of pasta, usually a pasta that's like strings
stringy pasta, and they'll shave fresh truffles over it, black truffles,
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or they'll put it on bruscata. I've eaten so much
black truffles, it's been amazing and I love it. I
also get a lot of porcini fungi, so that is
a wonderful way to drink these beautiful, rich, velvety red wines.
Another way is to get those incredibly savory eggplant dishes,
(06:47):
because eggplant is just made so beautiful here, particularly eggplant parmisana,
eggplant Lasanya. I've had both amazing. Just a footnote, really
at highlight, Montefelt has about fifteen really terrific walkable restaurants.
Some of my favorite Tartu laal Camista co Korou Mordevai,
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Tiatro Locanda de Tiatro, all within walkability. Also nearby is Assisi,
the very important Sanctiario and Covento of Saint Francis, a
CiCi who has really played a lot of important roles here.
Something you should think about is that Umbria was the
(07:34):
route between Florence and Rome. Okay, the Vatican is in Rome. However,
when there was problems or when the popes wanted to
get away from the Rome heat, they would come to Umbria.
And that's why these amazing wines became the favorites of
the popes. Saint Francis Asiski Assisi made his pilgrimagere and
if you go to CC, which you should do for
the day, you will see it's just beautiful. You have
(07:58):
to go there. This is a beauty area. So Montefalco
is the town. Montefalco is also the DOO, CG and
DOC where you can get DOCG, Sagmentino, Montefalco wines, Montefalco,
Rosso Doc and Bolatino also known as Trebiano Spolatino. Spent
about four days this trip, but I've been to Montefalco
(08:21):
three times and I could go back over and over again.
I want to thank the Consortio Tota Lavini did Montefalco
for hosting us for the Onentaprima Montefalco to learn and
taste about the new vintages. It was Pretifeto. Following Montefalco,
my husband David Knight ventured about ninety minutes south to
or Viato, now Ormanto. I had been to maybe for
(08:44):
an afternoon with some wine friends here and there over
the years, but I've never really done a deep dive
into the wines or the town itself. It's bigger than Montefalco.
It is more spectacular in terms of the number of
churches and stores and restaurants and things to see. Not better,
just bigger. And of course the highlight is the Duomo,
(09:04):
this incredible cathedral that you could just go to every
day and just gaze at and tour. It is the
centerpiece of everything that matters in Orvieto, and it is
also where the pope lived for a period of time.
There's also a small palazzia nearby where for a period
of time the popes escaped to this area for safety.
(09:27):
There's a lot of rich Etruscan history here, a museum
you will have never be bored. And what is really
neat is it is located. So Orviedo is a town
or city, a small city located atop a huge rock,
literally a rock made of sandstone and two faux limestone.
(09:48):
These are also the elements that are in the vineyards
that surround Orvieto that make these wines so great and
have great minerality. It is high up and you literally
can walk around on trails in an archaeological park to
experience an encircle Orbieto, which we did yesterday. It was
(10:10):
about five miles in ninety plus degree heat. I thought
I would die, but it was so worth it. I
got my twenty thousand steps. And for sure, this is
a town again of cobblestones and hills, so wear very
comfortable shoes. There's restaurants everywhere. Again it's about truffles, it's
about meat, it's about pasta's. They do something here. We
(10:31):
didn't get to have the pigeon, but pigeon is a specialty.
Because one of the really cool things about Orvanto is
this within this huge rock projectory are caves, hundreds of
underground caves where residents centuries ago lived and worked and
set up literally pigeonnaires, literally pigeonnaires. Pigeons were big business
(10:58):
back then. And you can go to under ground or Viato,
and we did with a wonderful guide, and we saw
these holes in the walls where they were carved for
pigeons to live and apparently pigeon poop was big business
for manure and fertilizer. People ate the pigeons, pigeons, the
(11:19):
feathers were used. I mean, pigeons were big business. And
there's this hundreds and hundreds of walls of these square
holes in the walls for the pigeons, and you also
see elements of old wine making and other items. So
you should, I highly recommend going there. Finally, I'm gonna
just say that in Orviato, you're gonna have some different
(11:42):
kinds of wines from Montefalco. The highlight is white. Okay, Orvito,
it really is a white wine area, and the white
wines are blends. That's kind of interesting because they aren't
necessarily in other parts of Italy. They are blend Trebano Tuscana,
a different kind of Trebiano but slightly. It's like a
(12:02):
clone of Trebiana's Filatino and Greceeto. These are very light, crisp, delicious,
dry white wines. And the great selling point is they're
all low in alcohol, under thirteen percent. Some are even
ten to eleven percent, So you're gonna love these wines.
I even tasted one wine. I think it was I
think it was a Vermontino owen winery, because there is
some also some Vermontina in this area. It was nine percent.
(12:25):
Good grief. What are the reds? Send gia vesi lens Again,
this is an area known for blens. It's a smaller
The red wine doc is smaller, or viatana is what
it's called. But I tasted some amazing red wines blended
with international varieties such as Cabernet, Sauvignon, merlou, Cabernet frant
and also with Montepulciano, which is a red grape grown
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in Italy. You may be may not be familiar with
Montepulciano de Bruzzo, which is a specific, specific style of
red wine from a Bruzzo. The red wines are still
reasonably lowering alcohol than Sagarantano to Montefalco. They range from
like thirteen point five to fourteen percent, So this is orvieto.
The wines again are orvieto doc, a white wine of
(13:14):
Trebiano and griqueto. The reds are a blend dominant of Sangiovesi.
You're gonna love these wines and you're gonna want them
again with more troubles. So I think I've had troubles
every day since I've been here. Since I'm a vegetarian
and this is meat city, this is meat country. You
can get to Orvieto and Montefalco easily from Rome, very easily.
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From Rome, Orvieto literally goes into Lazia, which is the
region where Rome is located. It's about an hour train ride.
You can go from easily from Montefalco to Florence because
you're literally you're bordering Tuscany. So right now, not terribly touristy,
very hot, very hot this summer. I can't wait to
(13:58):
come back in the winter because Orvieto does a jazz
festival the end of the year, which is my birthday.
I think that'd be a great time to come. So
highly recommend Umbria next time. I hope to come back
and visit Turgiano and spoleto other important areas of Toty
of Umbria. But the point is Umbria is a place
that should be on your travel itinerary when you come
(14:19):
to Italy anytime of the year. It is a four
season place. You're gonna love it all right, That's all
I'm gonna say. For now because I'm getting ready to
head out to Rome soon. But as always, stay curious,
stay fearless and fabulous, and follow me Melanie Fabulous on Instagram.
Because you have the choice in life to live on
(14:40):
your term, so choose it, and choose fearless and fabulous.
Thank you.