Finally Violante can consider her dream come true and she is at last head of sales of the 170.000 bottles produced at Casato Prime Donne and at Fattoria del Colle

Violante Gardini col depliant in cinese

A small production of prestigious wines which are already today sold in restaurants and wine stores in 31 nations around the world. Violante Gardini, the Cinellicolombini Jr , faces this new challenge full of enthusiasm. She has waited nearly 10 years for this moment, preparing herself with a degree in business economics in Florence, work experience for the Movimento Turismo del vino National office, under the watchful eye of Chiara Lungarotti and most importantly the Master OIV which, for a whole year, has taken her to the universities, to the wine producing regions and to the wine markets that are most important all over the world.

Top of the list of preferences for foreign wedding couplet are Tuscany (43% ) and villas, such as Fattoria del Colle, to celebrate their Vip weddings

Wedding at Fattoria del Colle

A small army of 6.000 couples arriving from the UK, USA, Russia, Japan and Saudi Arabia. With them are guests and families who create more than 1 million nights stay and business in total of about 300 million Euros.
Italy is the Romantic nation where getting married here means framing the most beautiful day of your life with works of art, splendid landscapes but also celebrating it by dining with delicious food. Top of the preferences is Tuscany (43%) followed by the Amalfi coast, Umbria and Veneto (all below 10%).While regarding locations, the Hotel is still the preferred, followed by villas and castles.
The marriage of a foreign wedding couple in Italy is consequently the crowning of a romantic dream (25%) which often is very expensive. According to Massimo Feruzzi JFC, author of a study regarding this new type of tourism, the average cost is 51.000€.

Michela Amori is a 36 year old brunette, with a lovely face and lissom movements. In the kitchen she is fierce, she is competent, refined, and has great imagination.

Donatella Cinelli Colombini new chef

What she loves most is fresh pasta. When she was a child she used to go and sat with her grandmother, who was cook for a very important Roman journalist. Every Monday morning they would roll out the pasta together, and even today when she makes fresh pasta following her grandmother’s teachings, Michela thinks of her. In fact when she is alone, Michela likes to eat pasta with a revisited Carbonara dressing which she invented herself, starting with the cinta senese “gotino” (meat from the cheek) and the onions from Certaldo.

If this is her professional sweetest memory, then her worst one is the dinner for the “prova generale” for the Contrada del Drago with 650 people seated and 3 people in the kitchen to help her. A nightmare.

This recipe from Buonconvento, a village on the road that connects Casato Prime Donne in Montalcino (10 km) and Fattoria del Colle di Trequanda (25km)

Recipe coming from Tuscany with tripe

This comes from a small booklet hand written by housewives, where all the domestic knowledge learnt from their grandmothers is recorded. The recipes are easy, quick and very tasty.

Buonconvento is along the Roman Via which in Medieval times became the Via Francigena. It was a fortified village with spectacular wall where one stopped, for armies, merchants, pilgrims and even kings. In 1313 the Imperatore Arrigo VII died here, and, according to the legend, he was poisoned in the convent with a consecrated host from here the saying <<Buonconvento e cattivi frati>> ( Good convent bad friars) which has pursued the Buonconvento inhabitants– buonconventini, also called granocchiai or nebbiaioli – to this day and age

Ingredients for the tripe

Boiled mixed tripe, grated rind of half a lemon, an onion, pureed peeled tomatoes, grated Parmigiano, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper

The 2012 harvest will be remembered as one of the best regarding its quality and as one of the scarcest regarding the quantity.

IGT 2012 Sanchimento

Very few clusters of grapes. For this reason even the IGT Sanchimento has been produced in small amount and is reserved for the most affectionate clients.
In 2012 the vintage has seen great excesses in the climate. Great snowfalls, with one and a half metres of snow at Fattoria del Colle, the farmhouse of Donatella Cinelli Colombini, which caused nearly a months transport paralysis. Three moths of extreme heat without a cloud or drop of rain between June and September. In other words the vines were really put to the test. The surprise was their reaction: they proved to be “intelligent plants2 solving by themselves the majority of problems. They reduced their vitality and so produced less grapes and then “abandoned” part of it which remained green after the veraison and these were then removed when the thinning out took place. The grape growers also had an essential role, hoeing, removing the excess grapes, managing the green leaves with a work –intensive commitment without precedent and in the end their work was repaid with the awarding of 5 stars to the 2012 vintage, one of the best in the last 100 years.