Home to a variety of unique foods and beverages, Italy provides some of the red, white and sparkling wines in the world. On top of the many field trips Cornell had planned for us for the semester, we also had the pleasure of participating in a wine tasting experience at Renato and Luisa’s organized by the program.
(P.C Maddy Eggers)
The night out at the restaurant involved three wine and food pairings as well as fresh bread and dessert. The first dish was stuffed prosciutto and cheese covered with nuts and honey accompanied with a glass of sparking Italian champagne. The second appetizer consisted of fried zucchini flowers and skewers made of pancetta, smoked cheese, and prunes served with white wine. Even though everything we just had was absolutely delicious, the main course however was by far the most memorable one. The savory crepes stuffed with mushroom and ricotta accompanied with an elegant glass of red one tasted like heaven in my mouth. I was just amazed by everything, from the softness of the cheese to the texture of the prosciutto. In my head I was already planning my next trip back to the restaurant to try out more dishes.
(P.C Maddy Eggers)
In addition to taste, we learnt that scent is an important component to wine tasting. As an interactive exercise, Renato handed out three tiny bottles of different essences to each table. The point of the game was to pass them around and guess the contents of each bottle. My table of four consisting of Candice Zhao, Linqi Dong and Luo Ran, were ecstatic to win after learning that the winning team gets to take home a free bottle of wine. However we made the mistake of thinking that we were supposed to guess which of the scents in the tiny bottles matched the big bottle of wine he had previously handed to our table at the start of the night. We went as far as Google translating the entire description of the product written on the back of the bottle, hoping it would give us a clue about the scent inside. Awkwardly enough, once Renato came to our table and asked us which flavor we thought was inside each vial, we just stared at him blankly realizing we had completely missed the point of the game. He gave us more time to work on the vials but the second time he came back to our table we still had no idea what was what. To help us hide our embarrassment he gave us the answer to one of the bottles after seeing our clueless faces staring back at him. We couldn’t help but laugh amongst ourselves, knowing that we were all hopeless when it came to anything related to fine dining. In the end, no one was in the lead since each table guessed two out of the three scents correctly. Each table was therefore awarded a free bottle of wine, making us all feel like winners.
(P.C Maddy Eggers)
The kindness and generosity of Renato truly made the overall atmosphere a heartwarming and welcoming one. It was overall a fantastic experience learning more about the Italian culture in addition to feeling just a little more fancy 🙂
(P.C Maddy Eggers)