Travelling in Tuscany… Rolling hills, cypresses in perfectly straight lines, terracotta-coloured villas. And on top of it lovely wines that perfectly matches the Tuscan food. It’s the ideal image of Tuscany, Italy’s most classic wine regions. But it is not just a dream image. In fact, that’s how it is. You will get a lot of it on a wine tour and gourmet trip to Tuscany.
Tuscany is with good reason one of Italy’s most visited regions. You arrive here easily with a flight to Florence (or Pisa, or even Rome). There is an endless amount of attractions in Florence, art museums, Renaissance palaces, churches in dazzling marble (the Dome is an otherworldly white) and so on.
The city centre is a maze of narrow streets and alleys. Restaurants and wine bars are everywhere. You can take the opportunity to visit the new food market, Mercato Centrale, which has become a really trendy food palace. Or why not the old food market behind Piazza di Santa Croce?
But since you come here for the sake of the wine and the food, do not stay in Florence all the time. There are many more exciting things to discover when you set out into the countryside, among vineyards and among olive groves.
That is where we will take you when you come on a wine tour to Tuscany with BKWine, a few luxurious, wonderful days filled with Italian wine and Italian food.
Travelling around the vineyards of Tuscany requires a certain amount of patience. The roads in the countryside are very twisty and narrow. One has to watch out for oncoming traffic. And for overtaking! Italian drivers are not exactly cowards behind the wheel. Maybe we will pass a village with a food market in the middle of the square. Then it will add some extra time before we arrive. No one is in a hurry when it comes to life’s essentials, like to shop ingredients for the evening meal.
Our wine tour takes you to some of the best and most genuine places there are in Tuscany. Winemakers with authentic and high-quality wines. Not always well-known, mind you; there are thousands of winemakers in Tuscany so it requires a lot of experience to find the right ones. Many of the best are small producers who do not find their way to the international markets, where often industrial-scale production is required. Instead, we take you to the authentic, genuine, and true Tuscany. We have travelled in Tuscany for many years and have had time to explore the many vineyards, travelled on many dirt roads, walked in many dusty wine cellars. Many of the wine producers have become our friends.
It is all this experience we want to share with you, when we come on our winery visits on our wine tours.
But the trip to Tuscany actually begins with food. What could be better? In an elegant Italian ‘villa’ (not quite the same thing as a “villa” at home) the hostess invites us into the kitchen. You can feel centuries of history in these walls. Many hundreds of years of tradition. You’re invited to get your hands “dirty” and to learn how to cook “Italian style”, which actually not at all complicated. But delicious. And a good thing that is, because what we prepared in the morning is also what we eat for lunch! Along with the estate’s own wine and its own olive oil.
Sangiovese is the king of grapes. In any case, it is so here in Tuscany. It is the grape that dominates in almost all red wines. But even if the grape is one and the same it can give wines of very different character. It depends of course on that each producers work differently, but also the soil and the climate can vary quite a lot. And although Sangiovese is Sangiovese, so to speak, there are many variations: Brunello, Prugnolo gentile more.
You will first-hand experience all these variations during our winery visits. You will see everything from small family businesses with a few old wine barrels in the cellar, to the home of the Count with centuries-old traditions in his castle.
Tuscany is also known for its medieval towns. Florence is of course the most famous. Siena was once upon a time at least as powerful as Florence. At the time when each was an independent duchy it was a constant battle between the two. Today Siena is perhaps an even more enthralling town than Florence. Siena’s old town is a veritable labyrinth of narrow cobble-stone streets. One of the few towns where I, who otherwise rarely lose orientation, sometimes have difficulty finding the right direction. Do not forget the city map!
This and much more is what you will experience at a wine tour to Tuscany with BKWine.
