Tuscan-wine-tours: the birth of the Sangiovesegrape

Tuscan grape variety, the sangiovese grape, is the king of tuscan grapes, we use for the most of our wines such as Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino, Nobile di Montepulciao, Morellino di Scansano and for many Supertuscans as well.

Enjoy the movie!

Tuscan Villas and Chianti tours

In the winter  Francesca, Olivia and I, usually do our homework  that consists of  strolling  through the Tuscany countryside to try new places, wineries and restaurants  to include in our special list

  

Today we went to a gorgeous Villa, a few steps from Florence,  which belonged to the Medici family, and formerly it was an 11th century royal hunting lodge; in the 17th Francesco Maria dè i Medici purchased the property and then  transformed  into a farm in  1836 by the actual owner

The villa is very beautiful, and from the terrace you can see  even the  Brunelleschi's Dome , the hill top town of Fiesole,  the countryside , the cypress  trees,  the vineyards,  the olives trees.

The villa owns 70 hectares of vineyards and 8000 olive trees .... are you curious to know more ...? 

Book the Renaissance Villas and Chianti tour

See you soon 

Tuscan Wine Festival in Greve in Chianti

As every year, we're back to the wine festival in the charming little town of Greve in Chianti located right in the heart of the Chianti Classico region

for three days you can taste all the wines produced in the area around Greve in Chianti;

this is also a good opportunity to discover new wineries and taste the new chianti that has just been put on the market ...   for deeper insight of the region take one of my tuscan wine tours

San Gimignano Vernaccia and Saffron tasting

San Gimignano

XI century pretty village... tough to pronounce even in italian..

is famous for its 14 grey stone towers

for its special white grape and wine, Vernaccia

and for its saffron, very precious and expensive spicy

It takes about 125,000 flowers to get 1 kilogram of saffron and the price on the market is 35,000 euro per kg….. can you immagine? The gold is sold for about 22,000 euro per kg!

The delicate red pistils are dried at low temperature for one night

Vernaccia was the first white wine that got the appelation in 1993 of docg wine, so stricly controller by the State. It is an old grape dates back the XII century and can be produced only in the small area of San Gimignano, and cannot befound in any other wine region

the colour is pale straw-yellow, fine smell, delicate, dry, armonic, with a little bitter aftertaste

enjoying the Vernaccia and the Saffron 

during my San Gimignano tours

rise with saffron

home made ravioli with saffron sauce

homemade saffron  gelato