Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Wine Ophelia Goes Rogue!

Somebody pinch me!

I am so excited I can't see straight! As some of you may already know from the Twitterverse and FB, I'm running off to Europe for a month! (More if I get my way!) I've been invited to work harvest at a small, family-run winery in the Piedmont region of Italy

while I do some research for a wine/foodimentary and some wine/travel projects I'm working on. (WAIT till I can tell you about THAT! Oh... it's gonna be GOOD!) Anyhow...being the francophile that I am, no trip to Europe is going to happen on MY watch without working my way into France somehow. So, I am (of course) flying into Paris and taking the train over to Italy. God Bless Eurail.

Get ready to follow along with me as I rediscover my beloved Paris after a (gasp!!) 6 YEAR!!! absence. Oh, how on earth could I let so much time pass before visiting again? I think this will be my 10th visit and 2 of those were 3 months at a time. Le sigh... I am so very happy to be going back. I'm also going to try to use Couchsurfing for my Paris visit if I can. Still haven't heard back from my requests.

After a few days in Paris I'm off to Italy to visit friends in Cuneo in the Piedmont for a food and wine festival and then to the winery where I will toil among the vines for around a month! This is where the fun should really begin. I barely speak Italian and to top this off, my host speaks only a Piemontese dialect!! Who is up for an adventure?! (raises hand and flails it wildly about, bouncing up and down... Think Arnold Horshack) Should be a barrel of monkeys!!





Cross your fingers for me and do dervishes and stuff! And let the "wild rumpus" begin!

Cheers friends!

---Wine Ophelia
aka Raelinn Doty Schmitt

6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. vineyard images by Sebastiano Ramello, Horshack ripped off the web.

    sorry for the weird layout. no time to fix it. so take THAT!! :o) but I still love you.

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  3. Congrats on Piedmont/Italy, but shame on you for neglecting beloved Paris :) You are going to have such a fabulous time, and we expect blog updates, if only to drive us crazy with jealousy!

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  4. INDEED! Shame on ME! I love Paris! aaaaaaaaah... I hope to have good internet and be able to post away!! Thanks so much for following!!

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  5. Strangely, one of my biggest wine curiosities has been: Does Nebbiolo on the vine taste different than most other vinifera grapes? I am voraciously addicted to eating wine grapes, so I would not be much help in a Piedmont vineyard. Can't wait to read about your adventure.

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  6. Thanks for taking time to post Evan. I'll let you know when I taste some!! :o) I find a wild difference in the wine grapes in general... just as in the end results.

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