Enjoy Your Wine But Enjoy Tuscany As Well

There is, of course, more to Tuscany than wine. In fact, there is more to Tuscany than food and wine! Like most Italian destinations, there are beautiful cities to explore, architecture to admire, great restaurants to enjoy, and picturesque villages to visit. You can also explore some of the region’s vineyards or sign up for organised wine tours to ensure you experience the best local wine. Enjoy the Chianti by all means, but it’s a good idea to plan ahead and have a few ideas of what else you want to do in Tuscany before you visit.


Visit Local Wine Makers

A trip to a local winemaker offers an excellent combination of learning and enjoyment of great wines. The Fontodi vineyard

Vineyard of Chianti Classico

is located at the center of Chianti Classico country, just south of Panzano. The entire vineyard and farm is organic, consisting of 80 hectares of vines and 30 hectares producing organic olives. Traditional methods going back centuries are used to produce wines with terracotta vats rather than wooden barrels to store wine. The owner Giovanni Manetti bucks the trend of many more prominent winemakers as she does not charge for tastings. You can visit the vineyard without even being obliged to buy a bottle.

Wine Tours

Organized wine tours offer the chance to be escorted around some of Tuscany’s best vineyards and restaurants by tour providers with detailed local knowledge. Do a little research, and you will find tour operators running tours that last from a few hours to days or weeks at a time. Tuscan Wine Tours is a small company that local food and wine experts run. It books tastings and sittings at some of the best local vineyards and restaurants, often negotiating discounted prices. Private tours can be arranged or you can join larger organised groups.

Sightseeing

As tempting as it may be to spend an entire trip in Tuscany settled inside a wine bar or touring vineyards, there are plenty of other tourist attractions where visitors can work up a thirst and an appetite. Florence is arguably the cultural highlight of a trip to Tuscany. Famous for its fine food and wine, the city offers some of the best architecture in Italy and some of the finest art galleries in the world. The Uffizi Gallery, Boboli Gardens, and the Ponte Vecchio attract tourists worldwide, and the city can become almost overrun in the peak tourist months. Cruise ship passengers disembark at the local ports of Livorno and Pisa and head into Florence to sample the food and wine for a few hours, so there are times when it is best to head out of the city and explore some of the delightful local towns. Lucca is less than an hour's drive from Florence, and its cobbled streets, which are tucked away behind Renaissance period walls, offer a quiet sanctuary from the bustle of Florence. You can walk round the city walls, admire the color of the surrounding countryside and then wander back into town for a walk around the impressive Cattedrale di San Martino.

Siena is another Tuscan town that is well worth a visit. Again, filled with medieval churches and towers, it is the place to simply lose a few hours wandering round and admiring the architecture. There are plenty of dining choices, ranging from the expensive delis and restaurants along Via di Citta to cheap osterias that will still serve decent local wines. There are several vineyards not far south of Siena; some are reachable by local buses so you can leave the car behind.

Where To Stay

There is accommodation to suit all budgets across Tuscany. The big cities have hotels across all price ranges, and some luxury hotels are dotted around the Tuscan countryside. Plenty of budget hotels or cheap bed and breakfasts, campsites are standard, and plenty of vineyards and farms also offer rooms. For real wine lovers, there can be little better than spending a few days staying in a Tuscan farmhouse, surrounded by vines and some of the best Tuscan wines readily available at cheaper prices than will be found anywhere else.

@Laura Chapman

How to pair wine with food

Wine Tasting

Each dish has its own ideal wine to accompany that should be served at the correct temperature. It's necessary to consider the various types of wine, red and white, sparkling wine, liqueur, sweet, lively white, red frame, pink, soft white, aromatic, full-bodied red, each with its own degree of aging and importance, in order to offer good food and wine pairing in a menu.

The pairings between wine and food are numerous and varied. The agreements must be established between the smells and flavors of the wine and the dish tasted. Today more then ever the importance of food is higher on the world stage. Any excuse is good to talk about food and wine, if you consider all types of cuisines and fashions that are born every day: nouvelle cuisine, traditional cuisine, cuisine reinvented, fusion cuisine, cooking finger food, ethnic cuisine and ... so forth.

Because of the importance given today to the cuisine is inevitable to be able to bring the right wine to the food served on the table. Beyond the taste, which is always strictly personal, there are some basic considerations to evaluate when choosing a wine to pair with food. See Table of combinations.

How to pair wine with food 

1) Identify the components of the flavor of a food 
It is important to decipher the flavor components of a food to see what value and what to compensate with wine. Sweet, bitter, salty, sour, spicy, spicy, are just some of the flavors that result from a plate.

2) Identify the components of the flavor and structure of a wine 
Even with the wine must decipher the components and main characteristics. It is important, both for food and for wine, that once established the dominant flavors you choose whether to use a food matching that enhances or attenuates these aspects predominate.

3) Advice 
It is suggested to always look for a balance in the matching.

Examples 
A delicate dish requires a light wine, while the strong flavors you respond in kind with an important wine.

Importance of the right wine 
After each mouthful of the same food, the taste buds send signals to the brain less and less strong, then you can appreciate that food less and less. Precisely for this reason it is important to match the right wine, you say "perfectly clean" the mouth combine harmoniously with the food so that every bite is as good as the first.

For more information visit us at:

Florence Wine Tasting Course

Montalcino and its Brunello

Like an island in the heart of Tuscany, the hill of Montalcino offers to those who ascend from the valleys surrounding it the feeling of a gradual conquest, the sense of arriving in a snug harbour.
Perhaps, because of its geographical position, far from the crowded highways or perhaps because of the purity of the air of an environment that is still intact and wild, Montalcino provides a host of stimuli for the imaginations of those who visit it, involving them in that magical relation between man and nature that, here, has the rare quality of being absolutely spontaneous. The people of this town have always been devoted to the labours of wood and field. But they have also enjoyed moments of proud glory as during the struggle for communal liberty in the 16th century, when they long resisted the besieging armies of Spain and France.
Anyway the best image of Montalcino is revealed primarily by wine, the most precious gift of a land that is at the same time hard and generous.
Already widely appreciated in past centuries, the oenological production had, even here, remained faithful to the canons of proven reliability of Tuscan tradition. It was only toward the end of last century that the first experiments were begun in order to improve and exalt the characteristics of a raw material and an environment no doubt quite special. Thus was born Brunello, as it is still created today, the fruit of a tenacious dedication, of loving watchfulness during the years of ageing in the winery before it is presented to a world that has learned to love it. It is the end and beginning of a legend that each bottle renews.

Territory of Montalcino: climate, soil and position of the vineyards

The production area coincides with the communal territory of Montalcino. Distributed over that territory, according to the best viticultural tradition of the environment and marvellously inserted into the landscape, the Brunello estates offer numerous opportunities to visitors interested in wine as well as natural beauty. Passing through characteristic villages and thick woods, the traveler will dicover well-tended vineyards, perfectly equipped and organized wineries, which are the secret and the pride of each estate from the smallest to the largest.

Brunello di Montalcino Biondi Santi

The commune of Montalcino is located 40 kilometers to the south of Siena. Its Territory, delimited by the Orcia, Asso and Ombrone valleys, has a nearly circular shape with a diameter of 16 km. and a surface area of 24,000 hectares.
The local economy is prevalently agricultural and, in that context, the vine occupies only a small share of the total surface: 50% is covered by wood and uncultivated land; 10% is planted in olive-grove, 8% is cultivated by vines of which more than a half are recorded in the list of the wine Brunello di Montalcino, the remainder is sown in grain, pastures and other cultivation. The hill of Montalcino having been formed in different geological eras, presents extremely variable soil characteristics, whether in constitution or structure.
For that reason, it is difficult to make generalizations that can be widely applied.
The lowest areas consist of terrains created by the deposit of alluvial material with an active stratum that is deep and quite loose, dating from the Quaternary period.
Farther uphill, the terrain, enriched by fossil material, has a reduced active stratum of soils formed by the decomposition of origin rocks, especially marl and limestone.
The terrains are moderately sandy, rich in lime, mingled with wide areas of volcanic soil, but tending to be thin. There are also other terrains derived from stratifications typical of the Siena area that are useful only for cultivation of cereals.
The climate is typically Mediterranean with precipitation concentrated in the months of May, October, and November (average 700 millimeters).
In winter, snow is not rare above an altitude of 400 meters. Monte Amiata (1,700 meters height), not far to the southeast, represents a natural barrier that protects Montalcino from most climatic adversities such as sudden downpours and hail-storms. The strip of hill of moderate altitude, where the greater part of the winemaking estates are situated, is not affected by fog, ice or late frost as are the surrounding valleys, while the normal, persistent winds ensure the best conditions for the health of the plants.
The fundamentally mild climate and the large number of days of serene weather during the entire vegetative cycle assure the gradual and complete ripening of the grape clusters.
The existence in the territory of slopes with different orientations, the pronounced modulations of the hills and the altimetric disparity between the lowl
ying areas and the higher district (Poggio Civitella), produce climatic microenvironments that are divers despite the relative compactness of the area.
The most widely used form of training of the vines at Montalcino is the cordone speronato, which involves short pruning (to two buds) of the variable number at the crown of the rootstock. The other form in use for Brunello di Montalcino is that of the archetto (the modified Guyot system), this involves a single vine shoot, pruned to 6 to 10 buds, which alone is responsible for the vine's vegetation.

Chianti Classico DOCG

Chianti Classico, that is the oldest zone of origin of this famous wine, covers the territory of nine municipalities between Florence and Siena. Under the Gallo Nero symbol production is regulated by a code that seats down sever criteria right from the vine-growing stage: planting density of at least 3.350

Chianti Classico DOCG 

stocks per 2.5 acres and yields not exceeding 16,500 lbs, meaning a maximum of 5 lbs of grapes per plant. The wine is made from Sangiovese grapes (80 to 100 %) and possibly Canaiolo Nero (max 10%), Trebbiano Toscano, and /or Malvasia del Chianti (max 6%), and/or other grapes recommended for the zone of reference, from traditional Colorino to more recently introduced Merlot or Cabernet (max 15%).
Wine characteristics are: bright ruby color tending to garnet with aging; vinous aroma, with a scent of sweet violet, and pronounced finesse in the aging stage; harmonious, dry, flavorful, slightly tannic taste, which refines with time to velvety soft; minimum alcohol: 12 %. Chianti Classico is put on the market starting October 1st of the first year after harvest. There is a Riserva qualification for the wine that reaches 12.5% of alcohol content after a compulsory aging period of two years in barrels and at least three months in bottle. When young, Chianti Classico goes well with grilled red meats; mature, it is excellent with game and the most robust dishes.

Chardonnay Grape

The Chardonnay grape is undoubtedly one of the most common varieties in the world. It's native of France, and more precisely from the homonymous village of Burgundy from which vine takes its name,

Chardonnay grape

in the nineteenth century, it quickly spread to many other countries,even far away.
It has long been cultivated throughout Europe and even in South Africa, South America, California, and Australia. At the time of his debut on the international market, the "Peronospera" massive mildew, small, invisible but voracious spider mite, destroyed acres and acres of vineyards.
So everyone was looking for a variety resistant to illnesses caused by fungi, molds and various creatures, able to stand firm in the face of bad weather, and also adaptable to different soils. Besides the regular production and abundant harvest made quite early, far in advance on the first chills of autumn.
Chardonnay, overall, apart from a certain impatience to spring frosts, seemed to concentrate all these features.
In Italy Chardonnay is present in virtually every region and produces wines of good quality overall. This is also a clear example of the great adaptability to soils of varying composition and environmental conditions.
The Grapes has a good acidity and produces wines with high alcohol content is used for different types of wine: still, sparkling and sparkling wine.
In short, the Chardonnay grape is a very generous and prolific and so appreciated all over the world.