Toast to Tuscany – it is wine time!

It is autumn again. Summer is over, the temperature is cooling down and the daylight hours are getting shorter. Autumn means winter is right behind the corner bringing along gloomy days and cold weather.

In Tuscany, Autumn also means vendemmia (grape harvest), the most critical part of the wine making process. This is not just about Chianti, a wine which everyone knows, but also Montepulciano; Brunello di Montalcino, Carmignano and Morellino di Scansano, to name but a few.

With wine, as well as food, being a very important part of the

The medieval city of Siena is located about 40km South from Cinciano.

Italian lifestyle, grape harvest is also a convivial event celebrated with an endless array of festivals, feasts and local wine celebrations.

For example, this week end in Poggibonsi, nearby Siena, the traditional grape-pressing contest Il Pigio (press in Italian is pigia) was taking place, transforming grape harvesting from a hard work into a joyful event. The contest is between the seven districts of Poggibonsi that try to win the Boccione, a stripped-back, hand made demijohn painted by artists.

With the vino novello (new wine) flavour, lower prices and blue skies, October is probably the best time of the year to visit Tuscany.

The main building of Cinciano (right) covers 900 square meters.

Ten minutes drive from Poggibonsi, there is Cinciano(www.cinciano.it), a tiny hilltop village in the Chiantishire. The history of the village, with its main villa, surrounded by homes for the servants, farm laborers, stables and a frescoed chapel, can be tracked back to the 1126. Today Cinciano welcomes guests who wish to combine a cosy atmosphere with a historical and cultural ambient. The villa, which can host up to 16 people, has an industrial kitchen, a huge living room with a wood burning oven, reading, sitting and game rooms, an impressive stone stair and a billiard room. In the back of the villa there are three levels of terraces, with a fountain and a swimming pool, overlooking the surrounding hills, vineyards and San Gimignano’s towers in the distance.

We will better get use to the idea of autumn but what if we are keen to jet off, while everyone slaves in the office? Tuscany is just the answer.

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Tags: Chianti, Chiantishire, Cinciano, Poggibonsi, San Gimignano, Siena, Tuscany