No trip to Italy is complete without taking time to visit Venice. Venice, Italy's canal-lined city is magical any time of the year. During our last Spaswinefood visit to Italy we had only two days in Venice. However, no Spaswinefood trip to Venice is complete without visiting a few of its enotecas, or wine bars as they are sometimes called. With the increasing popularity of wine bars and tasting rooms worldwide I was curious about what Venice has to offer.
After arriving at Santa Lucia rail station or Marco Polo airport, most head for the Grand Canal where they take a water taxi into Venice. We did too.
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| Grand Canal Venice, Italy © Spaswinefood |
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| Dining canal side Venice, Italy © Spaswinefood |
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| Hotel Ca' Formenta © Spaswinefood |
At Santa Lucia Train Station we bought tickets for the boat ride to Hotel Ca' Formenta. Soon we were traveling on the Grand Canal towards St. Mark's Square.
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| Scenes along the Grand Canal, Venice © Spaswinefood |
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| Scenes along the Grand Canal, Venice © Spaswinefood |
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Scenes along the Grand Canal, Venice © Spaswinefood
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The charm of Venice is endless. In fact Venice automatically transports you to another time and place.
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One of the bridges over Grand Canal © Spaswinefood
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Given there was so much to do and see immediately after arrival at our hotel we are off to explore Venice. Walking the side streets we discover lots of details while checking out Venice's enotecas. Here are a few of the Venice enotecas that we discovered. The first one was very rustic style enoteca near the hotel where we stayed. The sign in the window said Enoteca Vini Sfusi. I later discovered that it was a vini sfusi or vini sfuso shop, which are shops in Venice where you can buy wine on draft. The Soltovino Blog has a few articles written on this very special type of wine shop (Two more Vino Sfuso shops in Venice and Venice Vino Sfuso on our mind).
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| Enoteca Vini Sfusi, via Garibaldi © Spaswinefood |
Next day we made a few more discoveries. The first was Cantine del Vino gia Schiavi, one of Venice's wine bars closer to the style we see in North America (see articles by CheapnYummy, Travel Savy, Uptake and Visit-Venice-Italy).
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| Cantine del Vino gia Schiavi, Venice © Spaswinefood |
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| Cantine del Vino gia Schiavi, Venice © Spaswinefood |
Then later we discovered Osteria Enoteca Ai Artista, another wine bar. You will find reviews at Tripadvisor. Unfortunately we were not ready to dine when we dropped by, because it looked like a great place to dine.
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| Osteria Enoteca Ai Artisti, Venice © Spaswinefood |
If you are off to check out wines at a Venice entoteca, or any where else wine related in Italy then you might be interested in a quick overview of Italian wines. Italy uses a wine classification system with the following four categories:
1. Vino da Tavola (VDT) is a basic wine made for local consumption.
2. Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) is a wine from a specific region that is considered to be a higher quality than table wine.
3. Denominazione di Origine (DOC) wine requires that the wine zone is more specific than an IGT, the grapes used are more specifically defined and it must meet other criteria.
4. Denominazione di Origine e Garantita (DOCG) wine exceeds the DOC requirements. It must under go verification that the quality standards have been met. This requires a blind taste review.
The latter two categories (DOC, DOCG) fall under EU system Quality Wine Produced in Specified Regions (QWpsr). Alfonso Acevola has posted a list of Italian DOCG's with a map.
I invite you to join me in my travels in Italy and elsewhere in search of the best in Spaswinefood, or visit my travel column at the Examiner.
Sharon
June 2012
June 2012
© Spaswinefood
We should have visited all of them.
ReplyDeleteGood idea, maybe next time.
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