Valdichiana & Valdorcia (Siena), Tuscany

A Feast for your Palate

Visit small producers and sharpen your senses as you learn to:

  • distinguish between cured meats prepared by a local butcher using simple and carefully selected ingredients and those produced on a large industrial scale 

 

  • the difference between cheese made with raw instead of pasteurized milk

 

  •  between REAL saffron and what is also yellow and often sold as saffron

 

...and lots more!!

 

A Sample Day Tour:

 

Meet your escort in Sarteano

 

Head together for Sarteano's family run bakery "Marabissi" and learn how Tuscan bread, different varieties of focaccia, "Ciaccia di Pasqua" (an Easter specialty) and other traditional cookies, cakes and buns are made.

 

From Sarteano, drive together to Chianciano (15 min.) to visit a family run farm that produces extra virgin olive oil, Chianti Colli Senesi wine and raises Cinta Senese, an ancient and local free rangingbreed of pig. The family have also recently restored their wine c ellar in the old town and you'll be able to taste their products - wine, extra-virgin olive oil and cured meats made from the Cinta.

 

If you're still feeling peckish or just need a break, we'll stop in Montepulciano (15 min. from Chianciano) and have a bite to eat and drink at A Gambe di Gatto (literally "Cat's Legs"!!) a small café run by an enthusiastic and husband and wife team - she cooks and he serves and entertains. In winter they close down and go on a "work holiday", travelling around Italy in the search of new and interesting producers.

 

Montepulciano also has an excellent butcher who cures his own meats and makes his own sausages.

 

Next we will drive to a family-run organic farm on the way to Pienza that produces pecorino (sheep) and goat cheese. Visit to the farm, explanation and tasting. The view from the farmhouse is magnificent - picture postcard Val d'Orcia and Pienza.

 

By this time the day will have come to an end and you will be ready to go back to your hotel or agriturismo - and have dinner if you're still feeling hungry!

 

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