Tuscany - The Basics - Part 11

Tuscany - The Basics - Part 11 cont.

Tea and soft drinks

If you are a Tea drinker then you should remember that hot tea / tè caldo comes with lemon / con limone as standard. If you want milk in your tea then you need to ask for con latte. If it is summer and you want to drink your tea cold then ask for tè freddo.

Milk on its own is served hot as much as it is served cold. You can ask for a dash of coffee / latte macchiato or you can have it as a milkshake / frappe, flavoured or otherwise.

There are plenty of local soft drinks / analcoliche which I will deal with here as well as the normal international range you would expect. A spremuta is a fruit type juice drink and is most commonly orange / d’arancia, lemon / di limone or grapefruit / di pompelmo. It will be freshly squeezed at the bar and has the option of added sugar. A succo di frutta is a bottled version of these fruit juices that can be found everywhere. A local Italian version of cola is called Chinotto and is not as sweet as Coke. Another sharp drink is Lemon Soda, this is a brand name, so can be asked for throughout Italy and is very similar to bitter lemon.

Tap water acqua normaleor, acqua dal rubinetto is reasonable, safe to drink and free in bars. Mineral water acqua minerale does tend to be a more common choice. It comes in either still / senza gas, liscia, non gassataor natural or sparkling / con gas, gassataor frizzante.

Wine

Searching for wine in Tuscany cannot be covered here as it would need far too many pages. So this is just a quick overview to get you started. This general area makes up the heartland of Italy’s wine production. Its sales of Chianti are a large part of the country’s wine exports. Two of the best known towns, Montalcino and Montepulciano, produce two of the very best vintages Brunello and Vino Nobile. Most of the vines in Tuscany produce the local Sangiovese grape which is the foundation for these excellent wines. Traditionally most Tuscan wines have been reds however newer techniques imported to the area have increased the quality of many whites. Orvieto is a good example of this and is worth seeking out if you are in the area. The area has only a few DOC regions with most producing cheap, drinkable wine that never finds its way outside the area. Most are made from similar grapes and in similar ways to the big well known reds. So a little trial and error searching can produce a real treasure.

Local wine is not expensive and you can get a glass for under a Euro at bars and restaurants. Quite often this will come straight from the barrel, if you want to buy a litre then a little over €5 would be the norm.

Continued in Part 12