Cheese, Honey and Wine tasting.

Hi, last week I was on holiday in Northern Italy in Garda. During my stay, one excursion I went on was a visit to a farm, where they have cows and also produce cheese. Was not terrible interested in breeding, feeding and milking cows, but the cheese tasting was worth the wait, which was flushed down with a couple or three glasses of wine. The next stop was at a honey farm and one of my first thoughts was Clive and his bees. The bees at this farm are much calmer than our bees, so much so, that the host than we had, attended the bees in a T shirt and shorts (and footwear) and although they do got stung from time to time and mostly only on their hands, he says it's of no big deal, he recons about 100 times a season is average. Below is a couple of photos of him showing us the queen bee, and also showing us how he held a handful of bees (you'll have to excuse the reflection on the glass window, of the people looking in) the queen has a yellow dot on her head. (click on the photo for a larger view)

We had a taste of two types of honey, the first one was produced from 50 different pollen producing plants and was unset and was very nice indeed. The second one was produced from only three different pollen producing plants, which was also very nice, but it had a gritty kind of texture as it crystallises quickly. This farm is in Fiave **LINK**

A very interesting tour it was indeed and I bought a small jar of the very nice honey.

The last visit was to a winery **LINK**, where we got a taste of three different wines. The first was white wine either dry or sweet, the second was a red with was very nice. We then got to taste some balsamic vinegar and olive oil and finally a sparkling white wine, which was OK, but I'm not into sparkling wines. I bought a bottle of the very nice red.

Finally, here is a photo of the best filling station that I have ever seen. Well engineered I think.

Locals were there filling up 25L containers, the prices in euros per litre from left to right are, 2.40, 1.85, 1.85, 1.70 and 2.10

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 12/09/2017 22:14:22

What were they filling? Obviously not cars.

Discriminatory, possibly sexist(?), unsafe (if storing 25l of volatile fuel - only allowed, by law, to store 5l or a gallon in the UK), looks like a confined/enclosed space....

OK if it is for paraffin, mind...

Not done it yet ... Did you not think it may be wine that the pumps were dispensing ?

.

I think you are most certainly correct.

Nick

Hi Nick, good report from your travels, the mid Mediterranean areas have a problem with bees as the local Flora has a very short flowering season and bees can only forage for what is there. Higher altitude makes it worse and often the local bees starve from lack of forage. Usually the honey is thick and dark and sometimes green colour. This from the grapes as they feed on damaged grapes caused by wasps and Hornets.

Italy has not controlled herbicides and pesticide and Bee medicine and they have in most areas saturated the bee hives and wax etc with anti Varroa miticide such to the point the honey cannot be exported like China that did the same using illegal Antibiotics to treat bees.

Queen marking is debatable, as sometimes the bees see the Queen with the disc on her and think she is damaged and they supercede her rapidly, I have not marked a Queen for many years and have had very little problem.

Clive

I think you missed something

Dont see anything like that at my local Tesco station !!

Although the other side of the filling station is a little worrying!

I noticed that "Rosso" is the cheapest, just like my local filling station

Brian

Hi SillyOldDuffer, hate to think what the fist pump on the left is fed by then, as you seemed to have excluded it from your photo

But just in case you are still not sure what they were filling their containers with, I'll give you a big clue **LINK** just scroll the photos on the left hand side. Oh! and we were shown the big wine glass that the guy in the mustard coloured shirt is holding.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 13/09/2017 18:28:57

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 13/09/2017 18:56:41

Hi Clive, our host did say that the harvest varies from one year to another depending on the whether and this year was shorter than others have been, but they still had a good year. The jar that I bought is reasonable thick, but it maybe only very slightly darker than what we have here, but there is no sign any greenness in it and is reasonable translucent when held up to the light. Some honeys give me slight indigestion, but this one does not, should have bought a bigger jar of it

Regards Nick.

Hi Nick_G, I think the girl has got it just right.

Regards Nick.

Wine, cheese, honey, Italy? Super holiday Nick. Sorry about the sour grapes joke but I am sooooo envious!

Dave

Hi Dave, no sour grapes here, I thought the jokes were brilliant. If you ever get the chance to go, take it.

Regards Nick.