Wine based beauty treatments....

"Wine gives you beautiful legs".
This is how Francesca Colombini Cinelli titles her autobiography.
Francesca is a lady of Brunello, born in a wealthy family of Montalcino close to Siena at the beginning of the last century.

Her book of memories gives beautiful portraits of what life was in a small town of Italy in the 40's. She describes the countryside activities and habits, the celebrations, the hunting and the times of the WWII .She draws characteristic Tuscan personalities in a sort of Montalcino Anthology.

And in all these stories there is always wine.
And food. Intensely genuine food.
And I am finding quite funny that normal farmer meals during busy times of work like threshing were made of cheese, charcuterie, homemade bread, game roasts and of course a lot of good wine, things that we now consider gourmet food.


While reading and (only!) in order to test this beauty treatment, I have opened a bottle of Brunello.
A Fossacolle 2006.
A special wine.Especially for my poor budget (although not expensive as may other Brunellos).
And definitely worth the economic effort. The nose has a complex variety of intense dark cherries aromas, vegetal notes and a hint of delicate sweet spices. In the mouth it is deep and warm. Tannins are rounded and velvety but quite exuberant, probably they will need a bit more time to mature. Rich texture and a concentrated medium long finish. The oak is perfectly integrated and the wine shows the best features of a well handled Sangiovese. Distinctive and intense.

I am not really sure about the positive effect on my legs , but I can tell you that my palate was fully satisfied and on my face has appeared a big relaxed smile!

Italian grand-ma memories...

Being Italian when I was a child I used to spend most of my Sundays with my grandparents. Often  I was sitting in the kitchen and staring at my grand-ma preparing home made lasagne, fettuccine or gnocchi.

With those memories in my mind my personal amateur chef (once again Italian) and I decided to challenge our cuisine skills and to make gnocchi at home trying to remember our grandmothers’ moves.

To be honest the preparation is quite simple but it takes long and it is extremely tiring.

It is important to choose the right kind of potatoes. Go for the best for boiling or mash, it will give you a smooth texture; we chose Desiree.
We boiled the potatoes (2 Kg) and mashed them.


Then we mixed the potatoes with flour (500 grams), eggs (2), a little piece of butter and a pinch of salt.

 Be careful with flour, a bit too much and your gnocchi will be hard, not enough and they will break in the water.


We gently worked the mixture, then divided it in 8 parts and with each portion we prepared the little gnocchi.

 We left them resting on the table for a while and then divided them in groups, the ones to be frozen and the ones to be eaten on the day – we prepared 2Kg of gnocchi, probably the same amount that our grandmas would have prepared for a big family reunion!!!

Once you finish you will need to choose a dressing. We decided to go for quail sauce, prepared cooking the whole quails with wine, chicken stock, rosemary, thyme, garlic and onion, a spoon of flour.

Our final decision had to be the matching wine…and I chose a Rosso di Montalcino (Palazzo Comunale Cantina di Montalcino '07) a lower level of appellation than the Brunello, less deep or intense but still powerful and strongly fruity flavoured, with an lively acidity and a good structure.

Great satisfaction at dinner time.
Gnocchi were rich smooth and tasty and the sauce was great. Not sure if we have to thank our Italian genes or all that patient attention given to our grandmothers when we were children but the result was absolutely exquisite!