Il Vino di Solopaca

A little later than I had hoped, but it happened none the less- my adventures have resumed in Italy. This weekend after some serious running (14 miles!) I met up with my "other family," loaded up the van, and we drove. And drove. And drove.

Our mission of the day was to locate the place that sells chocolate with a" liquid pop of wine inside" and the gas pump wine place.

Both places are located in Solopaca.

No. That's not Italian for Lonely Lama.

Really, it's not. Depsite the fact that the 2 adults in the car voiced that it's the translation our brains were reporting.

As we contined to drive northeast the views from the windows changed from toxic waste land & bufale to mountains & farmland. Shoot, we even found a super old aqueduct...not like it was hard to miss when the road passed under it.

Shortly after we passed under the aqueduct the GPS lead us into Solopaca and signs for our destinations lead us into the correct driveways.

Stop #1 was Cantina Sociale di Solopaca, where our limited Italian and their limited English still got us our 3 5L demigans of wine from a gas pump. Amazing right? Totally priced right, even there is no way I could get through that amount of wine before it turns.

Stop#2 was Santi Martini, a small winery but the one that sold the chocolate coated wine candies. After establishing that they were in fact open we darted in to pick out our items. Rumor has it that their wine is yummy...but since it's in a real bottle it's going to have to wait to be tried for just a little bit. All I know is that the chocolate malt balls with a little burst of wine are fabulous. Which is why all the bags I purchased are still unopened.