The Wine Roads of Tuscany

Experience Food and Wine in Italy

June 2-9, 2012

Come travel with us through the back roads of Italy’s most prestigious wine country. You will see colors as vibrant as the people who produce the wines. Each day you will visit the wineries that produce some of the best wines in Italy. Here is a list of just a few you will be visiting: Avignonesi winery, a producer of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano; Altesino winery, great producer of Brunello di Montalcino; Castello di Monsanto, a fine producer of Chianti Classico. You will travel along the wine road (Via Chiantigiana), starting at Impruneta, near Florence, and ending near Siena.

Along the way, you will visit Greve and Radda. Greve has great shopping, under porticoes, in the main town square. Radda is an interesting medieval village. You will visit Dievole and Castello di Verrazzano wineries in this area. Castello di Verrazzano produces excellent Vin Santo and the best balsamic vinegar we have ever tasted. At the end of each day’s tour, you will come back to your private villa and gather around the fireplace to discuss, with a sommelier, the wines and the vineyards you have just explored and then sit down to a grand Italian feast that will pair perfectly with the wine of the day. One night of the tour there will be a special dinner with one of the local wine-makers.

Besides visiting great wineries, anyone who is interested can help “Chef Suzanne” prepare meals and learn the secrets to great Italian cooking in the gourmet kitchen of the villa which includes an outside wood burning pizza oven. There will be a day trip into Siena with the chef of the estate who will take you on a tour of the markets and shops where the chefs of the area find all the best local ingredients. We will also visit Siena’s famous Enoteca. We will then come back to our villa for a demonstration cooking class on preparing a typical Tuscan meal. There will also be olive oil tastings and a visit to a sheep cheese farm, to see how the famous pecorino cheese is made.

Your lodging during this incredible wine tour will be on an estate in Montestigliano in the Tuscany hills just south of Siena. This estate is composed of a group of 18th century houses and farm buildings which have been carefully restored to retain the original features common to Tuscan architecture, such as exposed beam ceilings, whitewashed walls and terra-cotta tiled floors. You will be staying in a magnificent 17th century traditional Tuscan stone farm house which sits totally undisturbed amidst beautiful woodlands on the crest of the Senese hills.

This villa has recently been lavishly restored with great care and attention to the smallest detail. The decor is elegant and very Italian and each bedroom has its own private bathroom. The immediate surroundings of the 2500 acre estate provide a glorious setting for walking, hiking and mountain biking. There is a beautiful infinity pool for your own private use.