View from Panzano

The Piaggio Ape is one of Italy's best loved vehicles. Designed in the immediate post war days of frugality the Ape sneaked into the workaday life of Italians through its economy, practicality and durability...and found itself taken into the heart of Italian culture.

Ryan and Patricia it was great meeting you both. I hope you enjoyed your day in Tuscany. Now get back to those 14 hour days selling superconductors!!

Wine tasting amidst the Olives.

Between the olive trees, under the shade of the vine canopy we start the slow day with Fernando explaining his wines and how they are made here in Chianti. The backdrop of Montefioralle provides the perfect setting.

Cat, Troy and Daniela learnt how each wine varies from year-to-year; more so for the smaller vineyards as smaller volumes of grapes prove more susceptible to climatic variation. The larger vineyards blend more grapes in the wine making process leading to a more homogenized product - great if you want a standardized product on the supermarket shelf, but less so for those interested in the variations between vintages. For wine-lovers small really is beautiful.

Montefioralle on the Slow Day.

A very small group today (just 2!) meant that Laura and Camae -I hope I've spelled it right- got a personal tour of Tuscany's less traveled roads. We could barely find a soul in Montefioralle; well apart from Fernando who let us try his wines and showed the prizes for the painting competition-

• 6 IGT 2007 "Monteficalle" bottles

• 6 Riserva 2007 bottles

• 12 Chianti Classico 2008 bottles

Now thats a competition worth entering.

Cherry picking on the slow day

A great day with Raelene and Ted from Brisbane. It stuck me that some things are easy to take for granted when Raelene was overjoyed to pick cherries from the trees that skirt the grape vines.

So, at least for the next few weeks, or until the birds do their worst, cherry picking will be part of our slow day in Tuscany.

Cherry harvest in Tuscany

Everyone lends a hand when its harvest time in Tuscany. A bed-sheet is placed beneath the tree and cherries flung down, to be sorted by hand later. The ladders we used couldn't reach the top branches of the tree...so the birds will have their share.

This was Friday; by Sunday the cherries not already made into jam were beginning to turn. How fast they rot without preservatives- it does make me wonder exactly which chemicals the supermarkets use to prolong their shelf life.

Another great day

On a day like today...there's nowhere I'd rather be. The first small green tomatoes have appeared on the balcony plants and those at the orto (allotment) and with this heat they should be ripe in no time at all. Everything so full of promise...

Slow Food Restaurant of the day - Taverna Del Guerrino - Not only some of the best traditional Tuscan dishes, but a view of hills, vineyards and olive groves beyond compare.

A stop for the view.

On the road in Chianti we decided to stop and take in the view. It's magical, no matter how many times you've been here. In the last few weeks the vines have gone from gnarled stumps to vibrant greens with new life bursting out everywhere.

It certainly makes a break from Florence.