On Friday, as Francesco and I were driving down to Montalcino from Siena, I couldn’t help but overhear him as he attempted to expedite a shipping of classic Sienese cookies and cakes to a client in Faenza in Ravenna province in Emilia-Romagna (I was driving).

Now that Francesco’s wine shop is part of the historic Nannini patisserie in Siena, he helps out with shipping logistics.

A customer’s package had been lost. And she was desperate to receive the cookies and cakes because she was throwing a milestone party celebrating “her second life”: ten years ago she suffered and survived an aneurysm and she had invited loved ones to commemorate the ten years since this blessing.

She is originally from Siena and the pastry was a sine qua non and centerpiece of her gathering.

The delivery had been scheduled for Thursday. But after a mishap in Florence, the courier reported that the package wouldn’t arrive until Monday.

Knowing that I would be driving north the next day and that I would be passing not far from Faenza on my way to Brescia, I offered to become a Nannini employee for the day.

And so signora Carla and I spoke on Saturday morning and coordinated a handoff on the highway, just south of the Modena Sud exit.

And this is how some ricciarelli from Siena made the world a better place.

Yesterday found me in Sant’Angelo in Colle at the Tenuta il Poggione, producer of one of my favorite expressions of Brunello di Montalcino.

My good friend and mentor Francesco Bonfio (left) had asked me to appear with him in a short film that will be part of a new installation at his wine shop’s new location in Siena (as part of the historic Nannini pastry shop in the city’s center).

It was incredible to drive through the preternaturally green Tuscan countryside on our way from Siena to Montalcino.

Unusually warm temperatures, a lack of colder temperatures, and high amounts of rainfall have brought spring early here.

That’s the view from the dining room at Il Poggione where we shot yesterday.

As beautiful as it is, the vibrant color doesn’t bode well for the vintage: if the growing cycle isn’t decelerated, the grapes won’t have sufficient time to ripen as slowly as winemakers would like.

But as one winemaker noted this week in Chianti Classico, the story has yet to be written and things could change from one day to the next.

Francesco and his lovely wine Marina treated me to dinner at the excellent Ristorante Casalta in Monteriggioni, where Chef Lazzaro Cimadoro and his wife Barbara also run a great little hotel.

Many Americans think that Tuscan cuisine is centered solely around pork and beef, but the seafood here is always abundant: Cecina, on the Tuscan coast, lies just an hour and a half away by car.

The biggest treat of the evening, beyond the food and lively conversation, was Francesco’s last bottle of Federico Bonfio Chianti from the 1983 vintage.

Man, this wine was light and bright and right on, with gorgeously balanced alcohol and acidity. Francesco and I paired with delicious roast squab. The fruit in this baby sang.

Today, I’m headed to Brescia where I’ll be staying during Vinitaly (and commuting to the fair).

More enogastronomic adventure to come. But not before I stop off for a brief visit near Bologna to perform a mitzvah.

Stay tuned…

I have enjoyed the immense fortune of meeting and tasting with one of Italy’s greatest winemakers, Giorgio Grai, on a few occasions.

But I have also been blessed by the even greater fortune of tasting older vintages of his wines, like the 1985 Bellendorf Alto Adige Riesling Renano (Rheinriesling) that my friend and mentor Francesco Bonfio opened for our table last night in Siena.

Just look at the color of that wine!

It was fresh and bright in the glass and as it warmed up, it revealed layered, nuanced notes of minerality laced with white and stone fruit. To taste it blind, you would have thought it were ten years old.

There isn’t a winemaker in Italy today who doesn’t owe something to Giorgio Grai, an icon in his own time. And in an era when Italian wine is increasingly dominated by international monochromatic tastes, young winemakers continue to look to him as the benchmark, one of the authors and architects of Italy’s wine renaissance.

As much as I cherish the memories of my few, brief encounters with him, the wines speak even more loudly in my mind. They have left an indelible impression that has informed and shaped my palate and my perception of Italian wine’s greatest expression.

Thank you, Francesco. I am eternally grateful.

Most years, my annual trip to the Italian wine trade fairs begins in Venice. But this time around, I started out in Rome because I’ll helping a friend with a video project tomorrow in Tuscany.

It was also an excuse for a much overdue realtime meeting with Hande Leimer, aka Vino Roma, and her lovely husband Theo, a wine nerd in his own right. Hande is a Rome-based wine educator and super cool lady with whom I’ve enjoyed a virtual friendship for a number of vintages now.

As it turned out, friend and Italian wine writer extraordinaire Monica Larner was in town (ever the jet-setter, she was between trips to Bolgheri and France) and so she joined us last night at the Gatta Mangiona — the “glutton cat” — Hande’s choice for our get together.

Posting in a hurry (as always from the road) but I just had to share the joy inspired by the entirely groovy wine list at this excellent Roman trattoria/pizzeria, where they serve a Neapolitan pie.

The gently macerated Casale Trebbiano d’Abruzzo (above) was lip-smacking delicious (who imports this in the U.S.?)

Some might say that fried artichokes aren’t ideal when tasting wine. To them I say, when in Rome… you find artichokes everywhere. These were so tender.

Classic Roman supplì and calzoncelli.

What a thrill for me to get to taste the 2007 Ribolla Gialla by Terpin, one of the Friulian radicals! (I don’t believe that it’s available in the U.S.) It was tannic and very closed but by the end of the bottle its gorgeous fruit had begun to emerge.

This place is a dream for people who dig this kind of thing (like me).

The pizza is Neapolitan in style. I had to do the Romana (my go-to because I’m a lover of salt-cured anchovies). I loved how they did raw pelati combined with seasoned passato. I could eat (and drink) here every night.

The “fat cat” also wins the award for cutest menu design.

Hande had reserved for us at 8:30. By 9:30 it was packed (and I believe reservations are required). I highly recommend this place. I loved it.

I’ll post more on our Roman adventure when time permits.

In the meantime, thanks again Hande, Theo, and Monica for making the first night of my trip so memorable! A truly unforgettable evening…

Stay tuned… posting from Siena today…

Landed early this morning at Roma Fiumicino and took a regional train from the airport to Trastevere, a roughly twenty-minute ride for €8.

Checked into my budget “four-star” hotel, washed up, took a stroll, ate a sandwich (thinly sliced prosciutto cotto and mozzarella on delightfully unctuous focaccia) and had a coffee before returning to my room, where I’ve been working all afternoon.

Snapped the above photo in this working-class section of Rome, the edge of Trastevere, where you won’t find a lot of tourists.

I love how the Eternal City teems with gardens and plants, like those you can see hanging from the terraces in the photo above.

It reminds me of how, even in Italy’s supreme urban environment, this narrow strip of sun-drenched land in the upper Mediterranean is one of G-d’s gifts to humankind.

I’ll be heading out shortly for dinner with some wine folks… tomorrow on to Siena… stay tuned…