Archive for the ‘Wine’ Category

“Vino bruciato”

Still a lot of sunshine in Cortona, but it’s finally getting colder..
So let’s warm up with some delicious mulled wine,
here’s a simple recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

1 untreated Orange
1 untreated Lemon
2 cinnamon sticks
8 cloves
½ nutmeg
1 litre of full-bodied red wine (some good Chianti if you can!)
200 gr caster sugar

Grate the nutmeg and thinly cut wide sections of the orange and the lemon’s peel, being careful not to get the white part as well.
Put the sugar, the peel and all the spices in a large steel saucepan and pour the red wine.
Set the pan over a medium heat and slowly bring to the boil.

Let it boil for about 5 minutes until the sugar has dissolved ;
now (carefully!) set fire to the top of the syrup so that the alcohol contained in the wine burns out, let it burn until it extinguishes on its own.

Filter the wine with a very fine knit colander and serve warm.

Tasty vin brulè to everyone!

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Chestnuts, wine and olive oil.

It’s Saint Martin’s day today,
and one of the most great Italian poets from the 19th century, Giosuè Carducci,
wrote a poem dedicated to this day, called “San Martino” which begins:

La nebbia agli irti colli piovigginando sale…

“Drizzling, the fog the steep hills climbs…”

Fog?????
Not this year, for sure, in Cortona!
We are enjoying a very unusual weather for this time of year: warm and sunny.
It’s like September but with yellow leafs on trees!

I know it’s not good, but I’m secretly glad the bad weather’s been put off for a while..

Castagne alla brace.

 

Also, without fog, you can fully enjoy the beautiful autumn colours of our hills, and nobody says you can’t bake those amazing chestnuts you find in the woods and eat them along with some delicious mulled wine…

 

 

 

Plus, with the good weather our people have already been able to pick their olives and make the long-awaited,
new,
incredibly green,
prickly
olive oil.

Bruschetta all'olio nuovo.




 

 

 

 

 

I’M HUNGRY.

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Scents and scenes.

 

Piazza della Repubblica. Cortona.
Late September morning.

I walk through the square,
sunny stone all around,
chatty tables outside “Bar Cristallo”,
the clock tower  is watching over:
our old men
sitting on benches
talking about weather and bones;
tourists walking, admiring, taking pictures, laughing…
they have the “I’m so lucky to be here” look over their faces.

Suddenly:
an amazingly strong scent of red wine pervades the square.
Deliciously unexplainable.
A dream?

No, in the middle of the square I see
a man picking up the rests of three bottles of wine
from the ground.
(Cheeky plastic bags!)

With a big smile and an “I don’t mind, because I’m happy” look on his face
he elegantly reaches the nearest trash can
holding his wasted “souvenirs” he had just bought in the Piazza.

Life is a play.

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Star gazing and wine tasting in Montepulciano.

Every year, on the 10th of august, at night, Italians raise their heads to the sky and look for falling stars.

In Italy it’s Saint Lawrence’s night, “la notte di San Lorenzo”.
Usually shooting stars are visible more on this day  than at any other time of the year because Perseus’ constellation is passing through our planet’s orbit.
The meteor shower is explained in a much more poetic way by Saint Lawrence’s martyrdom.
Falling stars would be his tears descending on earth on the day of his death, creating a magic and hopeful atmosphere.
So if you hope for a special wish to come true you should pronounce these words, when you spot a falling star: “Star, my beautiful star, I wish for…..”
“Stella, mia bella stella, desidero che…..”

I recommend, on this occasion, Montepulciano’s main summer event: “Calici di stelle”.

Montepulciano

(does “Vino Nobile di Montepulciano” ring any bell? )
“Star Chalices”.
A wine and food tour through the town’s quarters, accompanied by art performances and music!
Only twenty minutes from Cortona!

The complete programme is HERE.

Calici di stelle

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