This is the fourth in a series of collaborations with fellow blogger Orna “The Rhymer” O’Reilly of Orna O’Reilly: Travelling Italy, where we marry her original prose with my original photos and, sometimes, vice versa.

Regardless of who writes or who shoots, the end result of these creative efforts is what we’re calling PHOETRY.

Next up, a degustazione (tasting) of cheeses from around the Mediterranean paired with stellar wines from the Ca’ Lustra Winery in the Colli Euganei. It’s Wine and Cheese in the Euganean Hills in rhyming couplets.

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Wine and Cheese in the Euganean Hills

Words by Orna O’Reilly – Photos by Tom Weber

An email arrived from Ca’ Lustra. It went:
‘We invite you to come to a special event.
We’re having a tasting of wine with some cheese.’
Said Rita: ‘Do come as you blog about these.’

‘It’s the first time we’ve hosted a wine and cheese pairing.
It should be informative, if not quite daring!’
On such a hot day, we did not have to tell her
The venue was perfect, down in the wine cellar.

We sat at a table, we twenty or so
And listened with interest to Enrico
Who spoke about cheeses, the hard and the soft,
From all round the Med and the samples he’d brought.

Sardinia, Sicily, cows, goats and sheep;
The cheeses produced are the best you can eat.
And the flavours from Spain and Croatia and France
Gave the wines from Ca’ Lustra an added romance.

Franco Zanovello in the cantina of his namesake winery

Then Franco, our host and a pretty sound fellow,
Popped open a bottle of sparkling Pinello.
Nine cheeses we sampled with excellent wines
From Ca’ Lustra, who grow only organic vines.

Swirl, smell and sip, we just could not forgo
Muscat, Pedavenda and Sassonero.
The tasting completed, we headed outside
Where the evening had since become balmy and mild.

We dined on risotto with truffles so good
And Chardonnay, chilled, was just great with the food.
As we said our farewells, now the evening was done,
I can tell you the wine and cheese pairing was fun!

©The Palladian Traveler

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