Friday, 10 September 2010

Agriturismo - Tuscany

Tuesday ( 7th) to Friday (10th) we spent at an agriturismo in Tuscany, a very generous present from Joss' sister for her birthday, graduation, Christmas and possibly every future event until the end of at least this century. 'Agriturismo' stands for agricultural tourism and is basically a visit to a farm/vineyard. The kinds of places you can stay vary, but many include food, which is cooked using local produce. We were especially looking forward to tasting the local wine!

After a slightly nervous drive from Florence in our hired Fiat Punto (PM: the first time I had driven on the right hand side of the road), we got to relax for 3 nights and days doing a whole lot of relaxing, eating and drinking wine. Some of the things that were included in the package was wine spa bath (with music by Beethoven to set the mood), a tour of the vineyards and winery where they made fantastic chianti, and a cooking course with the resident chef. Needless to say, we had a fantastic time. The highlight was easily the cooking course, which was unfortunately on the Friday, which meant that Paul could not indulge in the ample wine on offer during the cooking and at lunch because he had to drive back to Florence. We cooked panzanela (a bread salad) , fresh pasta with a sausage meat and tomato sauce, roasted pork with a pepper and cream sauce and tiramisu for dessert. Fantastic!

Casa del Vento

The sangiovese vines
The view from our room
The restaurant, an old wine cellar

Very friendly owner's dog
Tiramisu
Our hand made pasta

The students




3 comments:

  1. Oh Paul, could you eat any of the tiramisu?

    ReplyDelete
  2. PM: Yes I could, we topped some of it with white chocolate.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So very jealous guys - looks amazing!!!

    ReplyDelete