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Montreal is a city for gluttons and for Cenerentola

A real ovation for Cenerentola Doc Orcia wine which has actually stole the show from Brunello in the Quebec capital

Montreal Graziella's restaurant- Tartar

Montreal is the city which, in the whole world, has the highest density of restaurants per inhabitant, and wonderful restaurants they are too, and what wine experts!!! So many sommeliers and an expertise regarding the wines from all over the world. Montreal unites American organization qualities to French tastefulness. The result is out of this world, a beautiful city, easy to live in and a glutton for nice food. Because the high rated restaurants are smaller and reasonably priced than those in New York, but have such a high quality level in the service and in the kitchen. The preparation of food is “ a vista” so quite visible, in quite small kitchens with respect to the number of meals prepared and the amount of dishes on the menu. Apparently everything is done on the spot with fresh ingredients.

Montalcino puts out its flags for the Sagra del tordo event

Brunello wine conquers the Council of Europe

An event in Strasbourg presents pictures and tastes of Val d’Orcia to the delegates of the Coucil of Europe: town of art, Brunello wine and pecorino cheese

DonatellaCinelliColombini-presents-Brunello wine-to the Council of Europe

If the European Union is the politic and economic brain of our continent, the Council of Europe is the birthplace of its values. The place where the local autorithies get together to share principles to be spead all over the countries.
Strasbourg is the best place for this kind of institution, the german border is only 10 km far away and the city is a multicultural one and a mixture of the perfect german organisation and the french sense of beautiful with its gothic cathedral with the stained glass window, the pinnacles and the arches. The building of the Council of Europe is the modern version of the same architectural shape. An harmonius complex of huge spaces realized to satisfy their functions.

Italian dessert wine: Vin Santo del Chianti D.O.C. 2005

Donatella Cinelli Colombini’ s Vin Santo cellar is under the roof of the 16th century villa in the centre of Fattoria del Colle in Trequanda in southern Chianti

Vin_Santo_Donatella_Cinelli_Colombini

Two rooms which are warm in the summer and cold in the winter where the amber sweet wine ages slowly in barrels of various ages and sizes: from 50 to 200 litres. The visitors can visit these rooms going up a staircase at the end of the wine cellar. Here one can see the old Vin Santo from Fattoria del Colle labels designed by Vittorio Zani, the graphic artist also designer of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena logo. On the walls of these rooms are splendid photographs by Giuseppe Cucco which develop a study regarding the image of food carried out by Vincenzo Pagano. The 2005 vintage had a variable climate which however permitted the production of fan excellent harvest whose distinctive characteristic was the very high acidity of the grapes. Traditionally every year the Vin Santo clusters are picked before the rest and are chosen one by one. Put into crates, which are piled one on top of one another, the grapes get moved every day according to the sun the humidity and the aeration. A very time consuming job possible only thanks to the passion that Barbara Magnani the cellar master has for sweet wines.

Grape harvest is finished and we are waiting for the 5 star

The 2012 vintage has been incredible; Donatella Cinelli Colombini went from pure terror because of the drought to full scale enthusiasm for the extraordinary Brunello grapes picked.

Donatella with grapes

A cold winter, with snowfalls which blocked people in their homes for a whole month, but also a dry winter where even the snow left very little humidity in the soil.

So, the 2012 summer has been preceded by a long period of about 12 months of dryness with rare showers, and that means with half the usual amount of 700 mm of rainfall which we usually get in this part of Tuscany. This is where it starts to get interesting! From June onwards 3 months without a single drop of rain with temperatures above average but most of all a sky that was always so clear, so the hours of sunlight were always very many every day. This type of situation has greatly troubled the grape growers. The trimming of the shoots were modest and the leaves nearest the clusters were left to protect them from the sun. The vineyard was hoed so as to maintain the humidity underground, the clusters were thinned out twice so that in the end there really were very few.

95, 92, 90 the scores for the Brunello wines of Donatella Cinelli Colombini