This post originally appeared on the Slow Travel Tours blog in January, 2023.
As part of every Adventures in Italy tour, we invite you to tempt your tastebuds when you spend an evening at the family owned and operated Ristorante Bartolomei for olive oil tasting and wine pairing, featuring local specialties. Leading us in our exploration is Graziella, our sommelier and the only non-family member of our Bartolomei evening.
Bartolomei has been producing olive oil since 1890, handed down one generation to the next. The olive oil is produced at the farm, Frantoio Bartolomei, and we start our evening by comparing the two oils, with olives picked earlier and later in the season.
The next course is antipasti. Always grilled or roasted vegetables in oil, olive paste on toast, truffle paste on toast, and if we’re really lucky, garlic. The garlic is soaked in milk so it’s less pungent, and delicious!
Usually a pasta course follows. Umbrichelli is the Umbrian specialty, like a thick spaghetti. You can find the same shape of pasta all over Italy but it’s called something different in every region. Truffles are also popular in this region, the mushroom kind, not the chocolate kind. Shaved truffle on top of pasta is a treat. Wild boar, cingale, is also popular, and will sometimes find it’s way into our pasta course.
We are often fortunate to sample local cheeses and honey for dessert. If you’ve never tried honey, also produced locally by Casa Parrina, on your cheese, you’re really missing out! Life changing, for real. There’s also biscotti, with dessert wine, or sometimes pie or a torte.
All of this is expertly paired with whites, reds, and dessert wines from Bartolomei and other wineries around Orvieto. Lucky for me, Graziella keeps track of everything and I’ve never had the same meal twice. Everything served to us, both food and wine, is available for purchase in their shop, and they ship, too. One last note, they also have a line of soaps, lotion and shampoo, made with extra virgin olive oil. Treat yourself to their lip balm, the softest, most amazing thing ever!
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