After all of the chaos with respect to the Bea winery last year, I have been wanting to have a look for myself. We have a group in April, and will be running weekly groups up to the area between May and October. We wanted to check out Paolo Bea, and if all looks good want to make his place one of our weekly stops... but... we are not getting any replies to our e-mail to him. Does anyone have a phone number?
Also, what experiences have all of you had from other wneries in the Montefalco area?
Michael, these numbers are from the La Strada del Sagrantino website - hope they are still relevant.
Tel 0742 378128 Fax 0742 371070
"I am a Southerner. I like the feel of these words. I could no more be otherwise than I could shed my outer skin or change the color of my eyes." Willie Morris
Posts: 1453 | Location: on the Alabama River | Registered: 22 July 2002
Michael, we had a delightful tour of the Colpetrone winery a couple of years ago. No food, just a nice tour of the facilities and a tasting at the end. The cost of the tour was deducted from our purchases, which made it free. We've also visited the Caprai winery, but just to taste and purchase. Ended up likeing Colpetrone much more than the highly touted Caprai.
We are slowly trying to become more educated on the Sagrantino producers (bottle by bottle as well as by recommendations), since discovering it a few eyars ago, and would welcome any input anyone cares to give. Who's good? Who's great? Who to avoid?
Gail has suggested Colpetrone as well. I wanted to check out Bea because there have been some fantastic experiences among Slow Travel users, mixed in with one very bad experience.
We'll be doing two types of groups when we hit that area: Some will be 2 or 3 wineries in the day, causing us to stay all day in Montefalco, and we'll have some groups that will be a morning pass through, so we will only do one. That said, I will check them all out.
Strange as it may seem, I have much more experience in Montepulciano and Montalcino, despite the fact that Montefalco is so much closer to us. I'd really like to promote more Umbria, and steer clear of Banfi-mania, if you know what I mean.
Paola will be. I don't head over until early May this year (I am coaching my son's baseball team).
Paola had a good conversation with Giampiero Bea yesterday (Thanks for the numbers Bags Packed), and got a really good feeling. They did discuss the debacle that occurred here months back, and we came away from it believing it was very likely an isolated incident.
The first group that I will personally be with up there will be on the week of May 17th. I'll post my experiences here.
Additionally, I'm bringing some pretty cool new toys with me this year that will have me producing tons of High Def (1080p) videos for the blog :-)
