May 22 A Day of Tours

We rose early after a fairly sleepless night (too much espresso during the day!) Domenico picked us up at 9:30 a.m. and we headed to Lamezia Terme to the Statti Winery.  We were given a tour by Paola, a young woman who works in marketing there, and speaks very good English.  The winery grounds are covered with olive trees and vineyards and other greenery.  The winery is fully sustainable and lots of other details which were awesome and would certainly be understood by some of you. 

After our tour we had an early lunch right there at the winery, just Domenico, Patty, and I with several, several courses, all pairing with a different wine.  I am not a big wine drinker, but I came away with a much better understanding of the different types of wine, the process that makes a wine good, etc. etc.  Could be that the reason I don't like wine is that I always drank cheap wine.  Who knows?  But we enjoyed our meal and the wines.

https://statti.com/en/company/estate.php

One thing that was fun for me was to realize is that this winery is on the 38th parallel.  When Leah and David Fear got married, their wedding was held near Leland, Michigan, which is wine country and that is on the 38th parallel, which is the same as the Napa Valley in California, which is wine country.  And here around the world is another winery on the 38th parallel.  So cool to me for some reason.  The tie that binds?

After all that food and a stop at the gift shop, we headed out toward San Floro to visit the silk worm coop.  But on the way we of course had to stop for gelato at the world's greatest place, Massimo's in Jacurso.  Domenico wouldn't let us miss this!

The day previous I had asked Domenico if we would be close to the Ionian sea (east coast of Calabria) today.  He said we weren't going there exactly, but there would be a place where we could see both the Ionian and the Tyrrhenian.  And from then on he was on a mission to find that spot.  While at Massimo's he asked the owner where was a good spot to see it and the man drew him a little map.  I wish I'd kept it.  It was like two lines pointing somewhere and we went in search of those turns.  We never found the spot (then), but we had fun driving around and seeing all the olive trees and bushes and plants.  Next to San Floro....