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Farm experiences

Shabby chic a pretend poor style that is very fashionable

History, character and trends of the shabby chic style including some advice for shopping and fro a wedding banquet

 

Wedding backstage - Fattoria del Colle - flowers

Wedding backstage - Fattoria del Colle - flowers

Its guru is the interior designer from the US Rachel Ashwell who has made elegant scruffiness a philosophy of life. The beginning of it all has strong ethic values; recycling, renovating, accepting the film left on things that have been lived as an element able to reveal the soul of things, because the use of objects entraps humanity into them and the story of those who have used them. New objects do not have these stories. So here was born the passion for vintage, market stalls and the new cloche style and most of all furnishings based on hap hazard combinations of thing that are elegant but different. So here come unpaired chairs around a table, where the table setting is made with period porcelains and silver cutlery, unpaired, and playing in a creative way with the contrasts.

Story of a Traminer emigrated to Tuscany and of its passito

Let me introduce myself my name is Carlo Gardini husband to (or maybe martyr to) Donatella Cinelli Colombini and I wish to tell you about the Traminer Vineyard at Fattoria del Colle

Carlo con l'uva di Traminer

Carlo con l'uva di Traminer

One might think that it is an experiment or the desire for diversity at any cost, but in reality it is something more prosaic and less exceptional.
Everything began about 35 years ago when following a trend regarding wines with lower alcohol content a group of important Tuscan vineyards decided to use white grapes in the Chianti area to produce “Galestro”, a simple and easy to drink white wine destined to be matched with fish recipes and for the summer heat.
The years go by and my father in law together with his wine maker, who came from Veneto, this type of wine does not convince and they do not like it so how to use the Trebbiano grapes still present at Fattoria del Colle in Trequanda? After a careful consideration, and some discussions the winemaker proposes to plant Traminer to create a white wine that added to the Trebbiamo already existent the perfume of the new Traminer just arrived.

So the first bottles of “Sanchimento” arrived, the new white wine that gets its name from the Traminer Vineyard planted just behind the crape on the farm dedicated to San Clemente (pronounced in local slang as San Chimento).
With the passing of the years the old Trebbiano vines produced less and less, and slowly diminish until there are no more and the Sanchimento becomes a white Tuscan wine made only with Traminer grapes.

A new recipe book: Stories and Recipes from Fattoria del Colle

A new booklet by Donatella Cinelli Colombini with 16 traditional recipes from the Sienese countryside, some revisited and some unheard of. [caption id="attachment_8049" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="A new booklet with recipes and stories from Tuscany"][/caption] Other than for stimulating the appetite, this recipe book opens a window on the Tuscan modern civilization where tradition and novelty are blended using the same ingredients. In the Italian countryside with the highest density of foreign VIP guests, old recipes are no longer enough, and so we delve into our memories of the past to find recipes that are today unknown, at the same time there is...

Violante is the new sales manager for her mum Donatella

Finally Violante can consider her dream come true and she is at last head of sales of the 170.000 bottles produced at Casato Prime Donne and at Fattoria del Colle

Violante Gardini col depliant in cinese

Violante Gardini col depliant in cinese

A small production of prestigious wines which are already today sold in restaurants and wine stores in 31 nations around the world. Violante Gardini, the Cinellicolombini Jr , faces this new challenge full of enthusiasm. She has waited nearly 10 years for this moment, preparing herself with a degree in business economics in Florence, work experience for the Movimento Turismo del vino National office, under the watchful eye of Chiara Lungarotti and most importantly the Master OIV which, for a whole year, has taken her to the universities, to the wine producing regions and to the wine markets that are most important all over the world.

If it’s to be in Italy then yes I’ll marry you

Top of the list of preferences for foreign wedding couplet are Tuscany (43% ) and villas, such as Fattoria del Colle, to celebrate their Vip weddings

Wedding at Fattoria del Colle

Wedding at Fattoria del Colle

A small army of 6.000 couples arriving from the UK, USA, Russia, Japan and Saudi Arabia. With them are guests and families who create more than 1 million nights stay and business in total of about 300 million Euros.
Italy is the Romantic nation where getting married here means framing the most beautiful day of your life with works of art, splendid landscapes but also celebrating it by dining with delicious food. Top of the preferences is Tuscany (43%) followed by the Amalfi coast, Umbria and Veneto (all below 10%).While regarding locations, the Hotel is still the preferred, followed by villas and castles.
The marriage of a foreign wedding couple in Italy is consequently the crowning of a romantic dream (25%) which often is very expensive. According to Massimo Feruzzi JFC, author of a study regarding this new type of tourism, the average cost is 51.000€.

Let me introduce you to Michela the new chef at Fattoria del Colle

Michela Amori is a 36 year old brunette, with a lovely face and lissom movements. In the kitchen she is fierce, she is competent, refined, and has great imagination.

Michela the new chef for Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Donatella Cinelli Colombini new chef

What she loves most is fresh pasta. When she was a child she used to go and sat with her grandmother, who was cook for a very important Roman journalist. Every Monday morning they would roll out the pasta together, and even today when she makes fresh pasta following her grandmother’s teachings, Michela thinks of her. In fact when she is alone, Michela likes to eat pasta with a revisited Carbonara dressing which she invented herself, starting with the cinta senese “gotino” (meat from the cheek) and the onions from Certaldo.

If this is her professional sweetest memory, then her worst one is the dinner for the “prova generale” for the Contrada del Drago with 650 people seated and 3 people in the kitchen to help her. A nightmare.

No tripe left for the cats – Tuscan recipe

This recipe from Buonconvento, a village on the road that connects Casato Prime Donne in Montalcino (10 km) and Fattoria del Colle di Trequanda (25km)

Tuscan recipe for tripe

Recipe coming from Tuscany with tripe

This comes from a small booklet hand written by housewives, where all the domestic knowledge learnt from their grandmothers is recorded. The recipes are easy, quick and very tasty.

Buonconvento is along the Roman Via which in Medieval times became the Via Francigena. It was a fortified village with spectacular wall where one stopped, for armies, merchants, pilgrims and even kings. In 1313 the Imperatore Arrigo VII died here, and, according to the legend, he was poisoned in the convent with a consecrated host from here the saying <<Buonconvento e cattivi frati>> ( Good convent bad friars) which has pursued the Buonconvento inhabitants– buonconventini, also called granocchiai or nebbiaioli – to this day and age

Ingredients for the tripe

Boiled mixed tripe, grated rind of half a lemon, an onion, pureed peeled tomatoes, grated Parmigiano, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper

The Prime Donne project and femininity among the barrels

BrunelloPrimeDonne2008

BrunelloPrimeDonne2008

The most important project at Donatella Cinelli Colombini’s wineries is dedicated to women and is finalized at increasing their dignity and their role in the wine world.

The Prime Donne project is made up of four parts: the Casato Prime Donne winery, the first in Italy with an all female staff, created so as to demonstrate that great wines don’t need big muscles but intelligence, tenacity and passion, things of which women have more than enough of.

Sweet Easter bread from Montalcino

It is called schiacciata, which means flat, but it is anything but flat. In Montalcino and in Siena it is a typical cake for Easter to make at home.

by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Ingredients for a Tuscan cake for Easter time

Easter time ingredients for "schiacciata di Pasqua"

Be careful though, in the eastern part of the Siena province the schiacciata di Pasqua is savory, enriched with cheese and prosciutto. It is used to interrupt the fasting period on the Sunday morning before going to high Mass.

I remember that for my first Easter Sunday at Fattoria del Colle in Trequanda I had prepared a wonderful menu for that day in the restaurant I had just opened. Half way through the lunch the Maitre Walter Marconi, from Montalcino like me, ran to tell me that the schiacciate, instead of being sweet, as we were used to were savoury, so we could not use them as a dessert. We remedies somehow but it was a real shock, because I was sure I knew the territory well but instead I learnt that the Val d’Orcia and the Valdichiana are two separate worlds, both fascinating, rich in stories, but to know one does not mean you know the other.

Easter eggs decorated by Jana

Different nations have different cultures and at Easter the tradition of painting eggs is particularly common in Eastern Europe. Here is how to do it

by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Painted eggs for Easter time

Decoranting eggs, how to do it

At Fattoria del Colle we have a young girl from Chomutov, an industrial city with 50.000 inhabitants not far form Prague doing some work-experience. Her name is Jana Kurucova and she’s a beautiful multilingual girl who is learning the ins and outs of the front office sector in tourism.
Jana learnt from her mother who in turn saw her grandmother paint Easter eggs. This is a very old tradition and originated from the countryside that still today is carried on in all homes. The decorated eggs are then attached to the blooming laburnum branches, as the eggs originate the joyful symbol of Resurrection and the rebirth of nature connected to springtime.

In the Easter weekend at Fattoria del Colle we have programmed a workshop on painted Easter eggs with Jana as teacher. All the guests will take home a splendid painted egg.

Here for you is the procedure to make at home some wonderful eggs to embellish your Easter table.

Baccalà alla fratina, friar’s cod, a recipe from Trequanda in Tuscany

Cod is really apt for the lent period, even though once it was considered a poor man’s fish, while today it is a delicacy for the rich; this is a traditional Tuscan recipe

Baccalà alla fratina di Trequanda

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

In the Tuscan countryside baccalà was, together with anchovies, the only available fish and king of the days of lent

A CRAFTY TRICK

The housewives had learnt to cook it with great sauces, even though in the dish one got only a small piece of cod, although with bread dipped in this very tasty sauce one was able to ease the hunger.

Nobody remembers the reason for this recipe’s strange name even though monks touring the countryside asking for charity were a frequent vision in farmhouses and around the villages, so we can think that maybe there were some dishes created especially to honour them. At  Fattoria del Colle there is even an apartment called “monache” (nuns) which used to be used to welcome these religious people on their way, it is in a position that allowed the guests to go outside without having to pass through the kitchens and the pantry. It was not unusual in fact there to be monks who were imposters, who tried to get into pantries and cupboards to thieve food, and so it was necessary to take precautions.

Pleased to meet you, my name is Donatella Cinelli Colombini, grape-grower

Enthusiastic, imaginative, tough, idealist, strong willed, glutton …. I created Cantine aperte, Wineday, I am the defender of women in wineries and of the superstar Brunello

Donatella Cinelli Colombini and Sangiovese grapes

Donatella Cinelli Colombini holding Sangiovese

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini grape-grower in Montalcino

I hate doing sport, I prefer to read or watch a classical ballet on the web. I would like to eat chocolate, salmon, Parmigiano and spaghetti but they are things that are not good for me….I don’t give up though, I enjoy good food too much
When I was councillor in Siena I was called “tank” because I faced projects with great Energy, maybe too much. One of my defects is in fact the lack of half measures, if I believe in an idea I fight for it.
I am embarrassingly lucky and even the most incredible projects have a happy ending.

Recipe for Chicken Mars style: the red planet on your plate

Midsummernight dream. The dish created by Antonio Corsano, chef at Fattoria del Colle, for Calici di Stelle 2012. Foto and text by Bonella Ciacci

Chicken Mars Style - the dish from our chef in Fattoria del Colle

Chicken mars Style from the chef Antonio Corsano at Fattoria del Colle

The dinner organized for the wine event that takes place on the 10th of august was completely dedicated to the stars and included dishes which reproposed old traditions or simbolic ingredients of mid summer rites. The chicken Mars style was inspird by the red planet in its colours and tastes, a balance between sweet and spicy. It is however an unpublished recipe which exalts the Tuscan products such as saffron, Vin Santo and extra virgin olive oil. Once again tradition originates a new dish which is apt for gluttons who are are attentive towards the news food trends.

When a present becomes a treasure and a story

Here’s how a towel becomes a unique present, able to tell a story hundreds of years old and to make a bathroom extremely elegant

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

ToscanaLovers-Siena-serviettes-Damas-pattern

ToscanaLovers-Siena-towels-Damas-pattern

Magic? Not at all, we are in the boutique for Tuscan handicraft, where we can find what we need. The shop is in Siena, in the centre of the Palio city, and is called Toscana Lovers.  One finds ceramics, cutlery, shawls, embroidered sheets…. and many other objects of great tradition made nearly entirely by hand.

We would like a towel, but not any old towel but something that will remember us to someone dear it and give a touch of class to their bathroom.  So here is something unique: these towels are in lines or cotton, made by the wooden looms built in Anghiari two centuries ago during the Napoleonic occupation and still today functional. It is these centenary machines that give the cloth a particular softness, and then of course the designs that recall those visible in Sienese paintings from Medieval times onwards, there is even a towel with the typical rhombus from Pienza and the fringes which recall the one portrayed in the  Maestà by Duccio di Buoninsegna  (1308-11).

Ciancifricola – many names for this Tuscan recipe with tomato

A delicious tomato and egg soup, in the Siena‘s countryside it is also called picchio pacchio. Here you find it in the Fattoria del Colle, farmhouse in Tuscany

Ciancifricola_FattoriaDelColle_ingredients_recipe

Ciancifricola_FattoriaDelColle_ingredients_recipe

Rewritten from the housewives by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

This is a main course for those who get home half an hour before dinner and still are able to put something delicious on the table. In a more refined meal the ciancifricola becomes finger food to be served in small bowls.

It definitely originates from a long time ago even though not quite Medieval. Surely though in the 19th century the ciancifricola used to be served halfway through the morning, so as to give the farmers some energy, during the heavy summer jobs. In the villages in the Sienese countryside it changes name and becomes pomodorata or picchio pacchio although with some minute variations, the recipe remains the same.