I join the chic set (well for an evening anyway)

Fawn called me in the afternoon one Tuesday in the late fall to ask if I would like to go to a wine tasting. Naturally I said yes. So I met her in Piazza del Carmine, the next over from where I am. [This is the one with the church with the Brancacci Chapel, which you would all recognize from the figures of Adam and Eve being tossed out of the garden: she’s wailing piteously and holding her nakedness and he’s head down and wretched.] The Piazza is rather unglamorous at first sight, with cars filling the middle. We met at the bottom of the square in front of a glassed in lobby with guardian. Inside was a huge, extremely elegant space: a huge, long narrow room with a similarly long narrow gravel floored tent beside and all decorated with orchids since this was the release party for a wine called Orchidae. The furnishings were white couches and trendy accessories, bar stools and stand up tables, with three bars serving the wine and white and champagne and fizzy water. Tiered plates held big hunks of parmigiano. We were there early with only a few others. As the crowd grew, I was introduced to all of Fawn and Andrea’s friends and quite a few business associates. I was the “dear friend from America who has just moved here.” I remember only a few of the names but they were uniformly attractive, well dressed and often spoke English. I met at least three American women who had married Italians. There were restaurant and hotel owners, fashion designers and retailers, wine biz folks and often all three in the same couple. We were almost all in black which made the white fuzzy couches off limits but a few trendy types wore soft colors and one charmer sported vintage Pucci harem pants. They served cute food which was also quite yummy and drat that large lunch! The whole event lasted from 7 to almost 10 by which time you could have been stuffed with food and tanked with wine. No one seemed to be. We managed to kiss everyone and leave, me toting a leaden collection of magazines which will serve me for at least a week. As I walked home – it was only three blocks – I felt I had been quite privileged to rub elbows and cheeks with the upper crust.

Guests

Had my first visitors this week. A childhood friend of my nephew came with his lovely lady friend for several days. They were delightful and we had a lovely time. I took them on a recon trip around the center the first day. They are pretty intrepid so I could set them loose upon the city to find their own way around. But together we went to the San Ambrogio Market on Saturday and bought a massive amount of food, in particular these yummy sausages that I love. Then we ate our lunch there and proceeded through town on the cute little electric shuttles that make it so convenient to traverse the carfree zone. For dinner we cooked lots of our loot and got truly stuffed. I will have leftovers through November! Then there was the wine thing: we drank lots. Dinner on Monday was somewhat accidental since we had planned a movie but they only had the Italian version of Vicky Christina Barcelona. We were forced to make do with a brilliant dinner at my fav here, Quattro Leoni. Our last adventure was an overnight to Chianti and Siena, stopping in Panzano for a lovely lunch and eating dinner on the Campo in Siena. The return trip took us for a short stop in Monteriggioni, an adorable tiny walled town, and San Gimignano of the towers. It was my best visit ever to this tourist mecca because they were mostly gone! We ate in a tiny restaurant and while they hiked around, I caught the fabulous view at the Punta Panoramica and drank an amazing Vernaccia (the local pour) which I naturally had to buy. They took of yesterday, with what I took to be a mixture of regret and relief. Looking forward to more visits.