This area of Tuscany is particularly rich from a food and wine point of view, going from
the extra virgin olive oil to the cold cuts, pecorino cheeses, up to the traditional desserts.
The siennese cooking has some very simple but healthy ingredients, such as vegetable products,
porks, ducks and chickens locally grown, transformed by the excellent skills of the farmers into
gourmet meals. Below a list of typical dishes from this area:
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| STARTERS:
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 Crostini with liver paté,:
prepared with veal liver, onion, white wine, anchovies, salt, pepper, served on crunchy Tuscan bread.
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 Bruschetta:
Toasted Tuscan bread with a little bit of salt and a bunch of extra virgin olive oil.
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 Panzanella
Still bread turned into crumbs and served with tomatoes, basil onion, vinegar, salt and extra virgin olive oil |
 Ribollita
sliced still bread and vegetable soup mixed together and cooked in the oven. Served with extra virgin olive oil. |
 Pici
hand rolled spaghetti made with water, flour, salt.
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 Noodle with hare sauce
the noodle must be served with a sauce prepared after leaving the hare marinating with red wine, carrots, onion, etc. |
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 Pecorino cheese from Pienza
produced exclusively with the milk from sheeps of the Val d’Orcia and the clay hills, where a huge number of wild herbs give a special flavour to this cheese. There are several versions: fresh, middle aged, aged. |
 Pork steak
perfect for barbecue, they must be served with tomato sauce, red wine and fennel
Liver chops: portions of pork liver rolled in fennel, salt, pepper and roasted. |
 Tagliata (sliced T-Bone steak)
portions of pork liver rolled in fennel, salt, pepper and roasted.
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 Tagliata (sliced T-Bone steak)
grilled only 2 minutes each side and served with lemon juice and rucola.
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 Cannellini beans.
cooked with sage, garlic, oil and tomato. They can be served with sausages (delicious combination). |
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WINES |
| A special section must be dedicated to our wines, therefore here below just a brief description of the best known local wines: |
 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano D.O.C.G.
Its taste is elegant and harmonic, dry and with cues of small typical fruits of the underbrush and also of jam. The vineyard used for the production is the Prugnolo Gentile, selection of the Sangiovese Grosso, in one minimal percentage of 70 %. Beyond to the Prugnolo Gentile, we can find the Canaiolo Nero up to a maximum of 20 %. It can be accompanied to furry game or red meats. Also it is easy to approach with cheeses as, for example, local pecorino cheese. It needs 2 years of aging and must have a minimum natural grade of 12.
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 Brunello di Montalcino D.O.C.G.
Brunello is a wine that is made with the Brunello clone of the sangiovese grape, a classic grape of Italy. Brunello wines are aged in oak and often need to age for a while to release those tannins. Colour: dark red. Smell: dry, warm, persistent. The perfect combination on the table is with game and roasted meat. |
 Orcia D.O.C.
This wine is made from a skillful blend of Sangiovese and Canaiolo grapes, with a light touch of Colorino grapes. This mellow wine with a velvety palate and smooth tannins is aged for eighteen months in barriques made of different types of wood, followed by approximately six months of bottle-aging.
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 Vin Santo di Montepulciano DOC
Grape varieties: Trebbiano Toscano faded grapes and Malvasia. Kept in traditional oak casks, known as “caratelli”, for a at least 4 years to ripen and get refined in bottles for at least 6 months..
Dessert wine of a gold-yellow colour, intense spicy (dried fruits) scent. Very good with the Tuscan almond biscuits (“cantucci”) and the herb cheeses. |
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EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL |
 Extra-virgin olive oil comes from the first pressing of the olives, contains no more than 0.8% acidity, and is judged to have a superior taste. There can be no refined oil in extra-virgin olive oil. Olives are hand-picked to ensure a better quality, since producers harvesting olives by mechanical methods are inclined to leave olives to over-ripen in order to increase yield. It comes from cold first press to get a less acid oil compared to the traditional one.
Link: www.frantoiomontepulciano.com.
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