Farm experiences

Let me tell you the Easter traditions at Fattoria del Colle in Trequanda

[caption id="attachment_6544" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Fattoria del Colle - Eco trail di Pasqua in front of the chapel"][/caption] On Easter Sunday the ”Eco Trail di Pasqua” runs through our countryside, it is a race organized by the Comune and the Pro loco in San Giovanni d’Asso. The race passes in front of our crape and is 22 km long. On Saturday the racers arrived covered in mud and breathless after having run along dirt tracks full of ups and downs. On Easter Monday the race is repeated along a circuit dedicated to truffles which is 19 Km longs and starts in and...

The Fattoria del Colle home – restylers at work

New job opportunities in the countryside: landscape designer, home restylers, entertainers ….English names for activities that Tuscan farmers have always done.

Fattoria del Colle - "Imbottigliamento apartment" - Paola and Paolo

And here they are in action, Paolo and Paola the “home restylers” at Fattoria del Colle. He’s a carpenter and gardener and she’s an accountant, but together they are a formidable team. They have succeeded in renovating old furniture and giving warmth and comfort to two apartments in the country inn: Guardia and Imbottigliamento.

The author Romano and the jazz artist Mangalavite at Fattoria del Colle

Gabriella Vittoria Romano and the famous jazz artist Natalio Mangalavite at Fattoria del Colle talk about themselves to the Lions Club Montalcino La Fortezza [caption id="attachment_6360" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Natalio Mangalavite, Gabriella Vittoria Romano - Fattoria-del-Colle"][/caption] An evening out of the ordinary, practically among family, all welcomed by the host Donatella Cinelli Colombini, President of the Lions Club , who offered a traditional Sienese dinner In addition to the club members there was also the Presidente di circoscrizione Luciano Micheli, the Area representative Giancarlo Batignani, the President of the Lions Club di Chiusi Giannetto Marchettini with their companions and Maria Raffaella Lambardi coordinator GLT. Then,...

March 8th 2012 International Women's day in the women's wineries

Granduke's Bedroom - Fattoria del Colle

Donatella Cinelli Colombini‘s wineries are the first in Italy with an all female staff. What better place for a stay dedicated to femininity?

Relax in the countryside between the Crete Senesi and the Val d’Orcia, in a wellness centre which is intimate and welcoming, which recalls Ingres’s odalisques, a dinner with a view over the medieval hamlet of Trequanda, accompanied by Cenerentola Orcia DOC, a wine with a fairytale and feminine name un but hides a woman of great character and determination.

Polenta con friccioli, pecorino cheese and anchovies from Montalcino

Polenta or “Pulenda” as we call it in Montalcino (boiled ground maize) is a typical dish for the cold winter months and especially when it snows because it warms you and gives you energy.

read and seen for by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

polenta

During the period when the olives are picked, something that at Fattoria del Colle and all over Tuscany is done manually and lasts from November to January, the polenta was necessary to hearten the pickers, who regardless of the north wind had to go up the ladders and hand pick the olives.

On Saturday march 3rd at Fattoria del Colle a great book and a great jazz

Gabriella Vittoria Romano talks about her book Isole with 4 different stories regarding women, Natalio Mangalavite at at the piano, he is one of the greatest jazz interpreters, and helps us to understand it Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini [caption id="attachment_6327" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Isole-Gabriella Vittoria Romano"][/caption] This short note would like to present the evening of March 3rd at Fattoria del Colle when, at 9 pm in the historic cellar, Gabriella Vittoria Romano will present her book Isole (CDGEdizioni 142 € 13)accompanied by the music of her partner Natalio Mangalavite, a great jazz musician who for 20 years was Ornella Vannoni’s pianist....

My heretic, excommunicated but famous ancestors: the Socinis

Among my ancestors I have two heretics: Lelio and Fausto Socini and I would like to remember them for the anniversary of the death of Giordano Bruno burnt alive in Rome on February 17th 1600

Campo_de_Fiori-Giordano_Bruno

read and written for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

My ancestors were luckier because they were able to escape but the family lost all of its possessions. The excommunication and the confiscation reduced the last living in Siena to poverty, that the be forced to load some stones from Percenna, near Buonconvento where the family originates from, and with these stones they built a cabin along a narrow road that still today is called Via dei Percennesi. They lost the Palazzo in town, villa di Spannocchia and Fattoria del Colle , which by chance and with some luck was bought back by my great-grandfather after three hundred years.

Cenerentola a villa for the Charming Prince

Villa Cenerentola is on the highest point of Fattoria del Colle, prom here on all sides one enjoys a wonderful panorama. No factories, or cement, just fields of crops, medieval hamlets, woods, olive groves, and stone farmhouses ….everything has remained unchanged for centuries with an effect of

Fattoria del Colle - Cenerentola1

extraordinary harmony. In other words a panorama which has a regenerating effect and a silence which keeps the city stress at a distance.

Cenerentola like the DOC Orcia wine, the best from Fattoria del Colle.

Cenerentola just like the little sister left at home to do the house work, who then meets the fairy godmother and marries the prince. And this countryside really is a treasure to be discovered. Far away form the touristic circuits and still unchanged.

Bonella, an old time name for a modern woman

My name – Bonella – is tightly bound to the medieval history of Trequanda, where Fattoria del Colle is found, I work here welcoming guests in the country inn. Bonella or Bonizzella dei Cacciaconti della Scialenga was part of the feudal family o fan immense territory in southern Siena. My parents named me Bonella after one of my mothers Aunts, to whom she was particularly close

read for youBy Bonella Ciacci

Bonella and Bonizzella's bell

I have carried this name for years practically unknowingly; on the contrary, I bore the name basically suffering it. It was unusual being the suffix of the proper name “ella” easily added at the end of any word, school was a nightmare.

Leg polling songs, rhymes of any sort, and a list of 72 nicknames laid down by my class mates when in college, among which were even some Italian literary quotations (Bonella Pirandella) or Italian football ones too (Bonella Montella).

Snow, wine tourism and wellness centre at Fattoria del Colle

The snowfall blocked Donatella and Antonio Gnassi who per expected at the Wine Tourism Conference but gave Violante great feeling in the wellness centre

Wellness center Fattoria del Colle - snow effects - February 2012

by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Never seen a such a snow fall. The road for Fattoria del Colle was completely covered with more than a meter of snow..
In one way it was something to be happy about for the good water supply for the soil after a very
We had here as a guest one of the major world experts in web marketing, Professor Antonio Gnassi from the Middlesex University in London consultant for very important companies and very large events .

Fattoria del Colle – the cat pound

Life on a farm

Everybody knows of kennels, but at Fattoria del Colle we have a cat pound.

Fattoria - the black cat

It’s in front of the historic cellar, inside going towards the courtyard. There are some very old large oil pitchers in terracotta and above them are three cat homes, and dishes with their special cat food..

At Fattoria  del Colle there are three black cats and one white, she is very ferocious, a real panther who scratches even the dogs who pass by.

The Grand Duke's Bedroom

This story is about the most beautiful and romantic rooms at Fattoria del Colle, the “Camera del Granduca”. Pietro Leopoldo d’Asburgo Lorena was the greatest Tuscan sovereign.

Fattoria del Colle "Camera del Granduca"

By Donatella

With the end of the Medici family, he became Grand Duke when very young and he moved to Florence. During the next 25 years he transformed Tuscany into an efficient state, that was rich, with no illiteracy, with a health system, where women had the right to vote and where the death penalty was abolished (1786), this was the first state in the world to do so.
Regardless though of his many good points Pietro Leopoldo had one defect. He was a great womanizer. It seems, that his wife Maria Ludovica di Borbone, daughter of the King of Spain, while travelling across Florence in their horse and cart would say to her 16 children  <<wave , wave to those children……..they might be your brothers and sisters >>.

Fattoria del Colle – Christmas Party for exchanging best wishes

This is the party for Christmas 2011 organized by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Fattoria del Colle Christmas party

for her employees. The winter festivities are the conclusion of a very intense working year. It is the moment for final balances, which, regardless of the crisis, are one whole positive.

The winery has increate its sales by  5,4% with a strong increase in what is exported, this has compensated the reduction of sales in Italy. The country inn has maintained last year’s levels while the restaurant has had a big contraction because fewer wedding banquets have been organized here. Very good for the shop Toscana Lovers in Siena with a double figure increase.