An Alfa Romeo and A Dog Named Barrique

On Wednesday, Dr. C. rented a classic 1969 Alfa Romeo Duetto Spider, sometimes called The Graduate car in reference to the classic movie starring Dustin Hoffman.  This is a special birthday year for him and his dream was to drive this car to the alps, and then drive the Stelvio pass, a series of 43 hairpin turns in 15 miles, proclaimed the best driving road in the world by Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, now of the Amazon Prime Series The Grand Tour.
Our first day out, we drove from the southern end of Lake Garda to Riva del Garda at the North end, a road that takes you along the lake and through some tunnels made famous in the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace.  Our drive was a bit more tame than James' in his Astin Martin.
The weather forecast for the Stelvio Pass looks miserable for the next few days, with rain, snow and ice predicted, and since we were close to a winery we would be visiting at the end of the trip, we asked if we could visit it earlier than we'd planned, and were welcomed yesterday.
The Alfa is an adorable car, but you have to remember that it is 48 years old, so no automatic anything, when we asked if there was a cigarette lighter to plug in our GPS we got some chuckles---that was a no.  The noise this thing makes in the tunnels is something to behold, and people stop and ask where we got it, and how long we've had it.

The scenery in the Lake Garda area is spectacular, roads carved out of the mountains, and with miles of vineyards on either side of the roads.

We arrived at 2 p.m. for our tour and we greeted by the Marchese San Leonardo and his constant companion, a Jack Russell terrier named Barrique, mostly for his size and resemblance to wine casks.

We were taken on a tour by the Marchese himself, along with Barrique who was my seat mate in the back of the car.  I'll continue this in another post about the winery and their wines, but for now, enjoy some of the gorgeous scenery at this beautiful estate.

This style of arbor is called a pergola, the leaves shade the grapes as they ripen in the summer.  The flip side is that they must be picked by hand. 

They are picking many of the grapes now, there were 3 hale storms within the past few weeks, and they lost nearly 1/2 of their production.  I'll be back with more of this adventure soon.  Until then,
Ciao for now.