Capannelle Winery - Gaiole in Chianti

Our second vineyard was the “Capannelle” a very young winery was bought in 1974 from Raffaele Rosetti who actually didn’t want to produce wine. After a few years of producing excellent wine, the original owner sold this wonderful property to Mr. James Sherwood, the owner of the Orient Express Hotels, know called Belmond Collection. Mr. Sherwood expanded the winery and added a stunning wine cellar with a unique wine safe. After a small tour through the cellars Giulia prepared a winetasting with four different wines (one Rosé wine, one refreshing Chardonnay, one typical Chianti Classico and one Solare 2006). During this tasting we were treated with some Tuscany specialties.

Make sure that you also purchase the renowned 50&50 which is produced in cooperation with the vineyard “Avignonesi” near Montepulciano.

We wooul like to thank the Capannelle winery for the nice tour and the unforgettable wine tasting! We were completely invited by Capannelle. Our above written review is our personal opinion and hasn't been influenced.

Castello di Brolio - Barone Ricasoli

The best start for a picture perfect day in the most wonderful area of the Chianti - was the “Castello Brolio - Barone Ricasoli”, the oldest winery of whole Italy. It is a beautiful castle between Florence and Siena and was in the past a very important place for Florence. They could spy out their enemy Siena because it was the last castle belonged to the city Florence.Barone Bettino Ricasoli, who lived around the 19^th century, was the founder of the well-known Chianti Classico (80% Sangiovese, 15% merlot and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon). They are one of the biggest wine exports with 3 million bottles, of which 80% are going to the United States.

We would like to thank the Barone Ricasoli winery tor the invitation to join the interesting Classic Tour for free. 

Fèlsina Winery - Castelnuovo Berardenga

The last point of our trip was the “Fèlsina” winery. In 1966 Dominic poggiali Fèlsina bought the estate. After driving through the wonderful alley we reached the court of the Fèlsina winery. We got a very interesting private tour from Irene. She showed us around the old cellars and told us their new project: vino Spumante. After the tour we had a wine tasting in the beautiful garden in the middle of olive trees and under a pergola. We tried a spumante Brut, one glas of Rancia (100% Sangiovese), one Chianti Classico and one very good vin Santo (Trebbiano and Malvasis).

We would like to thank the Felisna winery for taking time to show us around the winery and for the wine tasting.

72 Hours at the Castel Monastero in Tuscany

Located on the southern part of Chianti, next to Castelnuovo Berardegna, there used to be a castle, the name of this castle was Castel Monastero.

You're lucky, because this luxurious holiday retreat is still alive and even more luxurious then before the expensive renovation. If you ever find this place without a navigation system which is just confusing you even more, you will arrive at this place, just one hour south of Florence. After 13 hours of travelling from Munich, including one lunch break in Modena (at La Quercia di Rosa) and one longer shopping stop at Barberino Fashion Outlet, 30 minutes before Florence. 

After our arrival we were greeted by the kind front desk staff member Stefano who showed us around and even accompanied us to the room. The room itself, a Prestige Room, was very dark upon entering and the layout made the room even smaller then it used to be. A real highlight of our room was the enormous bathroom with double basin, bath tub, separated room with toilet, bidet and a huge shower. Don't worry, you will never run out of these luxury toiletries by no other then Lorenzo Villoresi, the nose of Italy - there are plenty of them inside the bathroom.

When you forgot your wake up call, then you might be awake due to some gardener cutting the greens around the buildings. If not, it's not really bad as the breakfast is nothing impressive. I have stayed in many luxury hotels and this breakfast is alright, but there are lot more products to offer even in Tuscany. We found the female service chef a bit rude, because we wanted to order Scrambled eggs with ham and not to take the cold and foamy scrambled eggs from the buffet! She did not accommodate our request and seemed to be more hectic than helpful.

The bar is a very nice place to chill out in the evenings and all staff members were quite nice and helpful. The snacks and the wines served at the bar are also very good. A real problem was the cocktails we ordered. We wanted to have Pina Colada. Unfortunately there is no barkeeper at the bar and therefore the Pina Colada was disgusting. I complained one time and they immediately served another one, far better but with little rum only and still the wrong glass. It is absolutely not the fault of the staff but for the price of 12 euros per cocktail we expected a real highlight. In fact it was a disappointment.

Due to the fact that the staff members are not teached how to make a perfect cocktail, they do not have a shuttle service (which is more then necessary for tourists coming without a car), the Wi-Fi did not work properly and because of the fact that our room was smaller than expected, we can only grant 7/10 points. 

Nonetheless, Stefano was the highlight of our stay and made us feel welcome.