Vagliaglia Grape Festival

Sunday was the last and most important day of Vagliaglia's Grape Festival, so we drove over despite gathering clouds. The road to Vagliaglia from Castellina is a windy gravel road mostly through forests, but only 6 km. We got there around 3pm and it turned out that was just when the wine tasting was getting started. We bought a glass for 10 euros (you got 5 euros back when you returned the glass and its little bag for carrying it around in). They had probably 30 wines you could taste grouped into Chianti Classicos, Chianti Riservas, and non-Chiantis. At least 3 brands were made in Vagliaglia. Vagliaglia is small, smaller than Denton, but charming. It is of course built on a hill and all the buildings are stone. There are a few more modern apartment buildings on the outskirts of town. It may be that the only paved road that leads to Vagliaglia is the one going to Sienna.

Back to wine tasting - there were 2 sommeliers who could tell you about the wines, Italian only spoken. We would sample a few then wander off around town, return for another couple samples. Very few people were tasting when we got there. There were other booths around town selling food and 2 with games. I stopped at the sweets booth twice, the first time for a piece of apple cake and the second time for a crostata (sort of a soft jam tart) and plastic cup of vin santo, like sweet sherry.

There was a painting and photography contest. The photos were pretty good, the paintings pretty mediocre. A couple people had also put up displays of historic bric a brac and vintage clothes in their living rooms or terraces.

There was supposed to be a parade at 5pm and crowds gathered along the route, but it didn't get going until 5:30 by which time it had started to rain. I have never seen such a chaotic parade! It was a short route with a loop at the end where we were standing and no one seemed to know which way they were supposed to go around the loop and everyone ended up quickly jumping off floats at the end trying not to get wet as the rain intensified. This was followed by a demonstration of local dances. They held the dance despite the rain, and the kids seemed to get more and more into it the harder it rained! They got a lot of applause for their endurance. Several older young men played the "clowns", dressed in country garb and cheered the dancers on while swilling Chianti from a big jug.

We thought about staying on for the food tasting which was supposed to begin at 7pm, but it would be getting dark and we weren't sure about the condition of the road home in the rain. We left following signs for Radda because we thought that would be a paved road, but it turned out to be an even longer, narrower, steeper gravel road winding down into the valley. We did finally make it to Radda with daylight to spare! We are looking forward to exploring these roads further on a dry day.