ninfa gardens and organic wine.

nature - doin' its thang.

today we went to the famous - ninfa gardens. since the year 2000, these manicured lawns have been considered a national monument of the republic of italy. the gardens have come a long way from the middle ages. a small town was located on the site (which is why you will notice building ruins in some of my pictures) that was eventually 'ruined' over a family dispute (and what was the cause of creating the ruins). the area was then abandoned and plant life took over the quiet countryside. now the area is maintained by a preservation group (they are friends of WWF).

the pictures we saw in class were obviously taken during the summer (everything was colorful and blooming, and the pictures were bursting with natural light), so in the beginning i was worried that i wouldn't be able to take any good landscape pictures. i was wrong, even in the partly cloudy weather with nothing really blooming the gardens remained breathtaking.

first part of the gardens.

i have a slight obsession with water in gardens.

see what i mean...

one of our tour guides.

all this beauty.

these 'star magonolis' reminded me of 'japanese magonlias' -
which are one of my favorite blooming trees.

this beauty takes some serious care.

calla lilies always remind me of nana!

i never knew that is what they looked like 'wild'

reflection.

so i initially thought these were some type of 'grape.' then the guide informed me that they are a beautiful yellow blooming flower - that is extremely poisonous. the little things i thought were 'grapes' are actually the beginnings of the flower, not food.

made in taiwan.

check out how crystal clear that water is,
and all the grasses that are growing in it.

when we were done taking in all the natural beauty of the gardens it was back on the bus to an organic winery! the winery we visited was called 'marco carpineti.' we shared a similar philosophy on life - EAT ORGANIC. ok, maybe it was more deep than that 'respect the plant, befriend the earth, watch your carbon footprint, etc.' the grapes they use to create their USDA certified organic (their american certification, they are obviously certified over here too) are native to the region (of lazio). another fun fact about their grapes is they trim them when they first start producing grapes. this way the plant doesn't have to work really hard and create mediocre grapes, the plant can have less grapes to 'strain' over and thus will produce a better quality product. GENIUS!

cinzia our teacher in the 'wine shop.'

some barrels of wine aging.

when you create a sparkling wine, you add yeast (like you would to beer) to create the bubbly effect. when the yeast 'dies,' it leaves a sediment in the bottle. to extract the sediment you must slowly (over the course of a year or 2) turn the bottle upside down so all the yeast will settle down in the neck of the bottle. once this is done the yeast is frozen - remember that is isn't alcohol so the remaining yeast sediment will freeze into a convenient little block, not the wine. then a machine opens the bottle allowing the frozen mass to escape while relieving some of the pressure. the cork is added and now the sparkling wine is ready for the shelf.

some bottles that are having the sediment gradually moved to the neck.

fun fact: i am sure that you might have wondered sometime in you life ' why does champagne have foil that goes all the way down the neck?' well it is you lucky day, because i have the answer! back in the day when the cork process (that i just described) was done manually the person would not be as efficient as a machine, meaning that more of the liquid would have the chance to escape. so the foil was placed on the bottles to 'hide' how much was actually missing.

norton is respecting the aging wine,
you are allowed to stroke but not tap or knock.

ready to sell!

cool bottles!

the dessert we had after our 'light lunch' (which actually consisted of the traditional 3 courses) was cake a cookies. the cake looked similar to the 'angel food cake' we had the night before, but tasted like...KING CAKE! krystle (my friend from NOLA) and i were sitting next to each other and immediately after we ate the cake exclaimed 'KING CAKE! it tastes like king cake!' after inhaling another piece i decided to go ask our teacher about this cake. she said it was a typical italian easter cake, i told her a similar cake was served during mardi gras - i don't really think she understood. but in italy the cake is called 'columbo,' so if you are ever in italy around easter and craving some king cake (minus the icing and cinnamon) you know what you need to order.

catholic cake.

olive trees! they bottled the olive oil into wine bottles.

organic vineyard.