Life on a Tuscan Farm

This year we hired a new bee keeper named Gabriele to help us produce our delicious millefiore miele (thousand flower honey) at Spannocchia. Besides taking care of our bees, Gabriele has his own bee hives on his nearby farm and makes all kinds of great products such as pollen, propolis, bees wax candles, and of course honey. Carrie, Heather, and Suzie went to extract honey at Gabriele’s newly completed honey lab utilizing time saving machines like the centrifuge and a machine that slices open the wax. In a week or so we will return to bottle the honey into individual jars to sell in our store. A presto!

The end-of-vendemmia lunch is a Spannocchia tradition when we celebrate the successful completion of the vendemmia (and all the hard work that goes into it) by throwing ourselves a party. Today The Passion of Painting group arrived just in time to partake in the delicious lasagna, scrumptious roast and a schiacciata di uva with fresh grapes right off the vine! Thanks to Loredana, Daniela and guest services interns Katya and Heather who worked hard to fill us up… A presto!

The steps of Spannocchia’s red grape harvest

The red grapes are “picked” (cut off in bunches with shears) by staff and interns moving progressively through the three vineyards as quickly as possible

Red grapes are brought up by trailer or van to the main cantina area in the Fattoria

The grape bunches are put through a machine that removes the stems and breaks them free from the bunch, lightly crushing them (but not pressing them)

The grapes and juice go through a large tube and end up in a large tino (vat) where the skins, seeds and juice will all stay until the first fermentation, after which everything but the juice will be filtered out for the remaining fermentation processes that turns the juice into wine!

A presto!

This monday we started the vendemmia (grape harvest) at Spannocchia. Over the past few weeks, Angelo and Riccio have been repeatedly checking the sugar content of the grapes (high sugar equals good alcohol content after fermentation) and they were deemed ready to pick! The Vin Santo grapes were harvested first as they are the most delicate. As you can see from the pictures, they are very open bunches of white grapes which are brought in from the vineyard and immediately hung like Christmas tree ornaments in a dry room. They will stay this way until December or January, slowly turning into raisins (but still in bunches) and will then be pressed to make a sweet dessert wine with an alcohol content of around 16%. The wine is then aged in barrels for 3-5 years and when ready can be enjoyed after dinner with cantucci cookies! A presto!

On Saturday, September 8th Spannocchia hosted the third and final walk of the season with historian and naturalist Lorenzo Anselmi. By the 9am departure, we had 30 people ready to hike with us including all the fall interns and volunteers, most of the Portland State University Geography group and several Spannocchia staff members. We set out by first crossing the Spannocchia property, passing the vineyards, the sheep and exiting out the back road past Casetta al Leccio, where we looked back for an amazing view of Montarenti and the Merse valley below. The walk continued past Pentolina with a short stop as Lorenzo discussed the history of the town as well as cypress trees and wild vines. After another hour, we came to an abandoned farm building and took the opportunity to rest in the shade of the building and have a snack. We then crossed the Feccia stream and several farm fields, where just a few weeks ago there were thousands of sunflowers, and headed up the hill toward our destination. From the top of the hill we could see across to the beautiful, roofless Abbey of San Galgano and above us to the chapel of Montesiepi. After lunch, and a visit to the Abbey, we walked up the steep hill to the chapel. Once inside the chapel we viewed San Galgano’s sword in the stone and fresco’s by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. After the success of our 2007 hiking series we plan to host more walks at Spannocchia in 2008- we hope to see you there. A presto!