Yesterday we attended a wine tasting held by the Italian Sommelier Association of Japan in the Osaka City Hall building. Our friend Chiemi often frequents an Italian wine bar and has developed a deep interest in Italian wines, so she invited us along and we were happy to accept.
The place was riverside in Yodoyabashi, and very quiet on a Sunday. We walked along the river and then waited a few minutes for Chiemi, Ai, and a friend of Ai’s to show up. Then we went inside and started tasting.
The event was well attended – and well-staffed. There were about 60 wines being poured – all Chiantis. There isn’t a lot of diversity in Chianti Classico as the blend is generally set, but we could find some interesting wines out there. The best part was a small piece of paper that you could take with a color picture of the label, the price, and all of the important information about the wine – winery, vintage, etc. Now I have a pile of papers and I can search the internet to try to get the bottles delivered.
It has been a long time since I’ve been to a wine tasting. The workers were very pleasant but not too talkative, at least to me. The age-old problem of people crowding the tables and not moving after getting a taste is still around… move aside, people! It was good to be back tasting, and I’m hoping we can do an event like this in the future.
Next stop was an Italian restaurant for dinner. The place was near Umeda, and it turned out to be really good. There were a couple of Italian guys working there, they served giant plates of antipasti, and the pizza oven was a traditional brick oven that turned out great pizza. We met up with Chu Chu and her boyfriend for dinner, and it was my first time to meet him. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and we promised that we’d try to do some hiking in the future – I guess he is really into hiking as well as motorcycling.
We were pretty bushed after staying out so late on a school night, so we caught a super rapid home, and got to bed before midnight. I think we’ll be lagging a little today, but it was worth it.
