Latest News
|
Italia! Magazine - May 2016Added: 15th April 2016We have been SO busy that we have not updated for ages!If you have seen some of our scrummy properties (or food!) in Italia! May issue please get in touch on (0044) 01328 730856 for further details (we have got a temporary problem on 0039 338 793 5130....and we don’t want you to have to wait!). Spring in Tuscany is looking good! |
|
Italia! Magazine ArticleAdded: 27th November 2014Food is a passion here at Tuscany Home & Living, with which in mind we would like to share an item published in the UK monthly magazine pertaining to all things Italian: Italia!An article about food in Montalcino. Naturally! |
|
Of wine and truffles!Added: 25th November 2014It seems incredible but this coming weekend, the 29th/30th November we will be wending our way to the Chelsea Physic Garden Christmas Fair!We hope that we are going to meet lots of olive oil, hand cream and Vintage lovers who have enjoyed our products in the last two years. This year we have a couple of surprises up our sleeves, my 2012 first vintage Tuscan rosso IGT and some real, live, fresh TRUFFLES !!! Also some truffle products of the same provenance; San Giovanni d’Asso & the Crete senese in the Province of Siena! We should be even more fragrant than usual this year! |
|
A Taste of Montalcino in Italia! magazineAdded: 10th October 2014If you have a look in the latest Italia! magazine you'll find an article written by Wanda on food traditions in Montalcino - definitely worth a read. There is also an article about restoration that she has contributed to - it's out now! |
|
A taste of Tuscan Country Life!Added: 24th September 2014This weekend we will be at the Country Life Fair at Fulham Palace in London. Come and see us and sample our wine and olive oil and talk to us about life in Tuscany! http://www.countrylifefair.co.uk/ |
|
Tuscan Farm Shop - read all about it!Added: 8th September 2014Have a look at this lovely article about the Tuscan Farm Shop in local Norfolk publication KL Magazine. We are now into our third week and are keeping very busy bringing the taste of Tuscany to Burnham Market!http://issuu.com/klmagazine/docs/klmagazine_september2014/25?e=2527299/9113653 |
|
The Tuscan Farm shop is coming soon!Added: 12th August 2014Have a look at our Facebook page here for a blow by blow account of the shop being put together. |
|
The Tuscan Farm shop; news!Added: 3rd August 2014The lovely people at Facebook have seen fit to take down our page (temporarily?). Obviously not in touch with the small Tuscan Farmer trying to bring her goods to a pop up shop in Burnham Market, Norfolk in the UK. Please look out here for further news on the pop up (imminent!). Jose Bove we need you! |
|
Tuscany pop up!Added: 15th July 2014We really are going to be popping up in Burnham Market on the east coast of England. |
|
Tuscany Pops-up in Norfolk!Added: 13th July 2014A new pop-up shop showcasing our wine, olive oil and lots more of our artisan goodies and vintage finds will be launching in the UK!Come along to the village green at Burnham Market, Norfolk throughout August and September and you will be able to see and taste (even buy and takeaway!) a lot of what Tuscany Home & Living is all about; our love affair with Montalcino, Siena. My first vintage of wine, Homagium 2012, will be on sale for the first time in the UK and will be there to be tasted in the Tuscan Farm Shop!! We will be serving Tuscan nibbles such as Pecorino cheese, panzanella bread salad and the incomparable olive oil from my farm, Ribusuoli. Hence the name the TUSCAN FARM Shop, it will be part of my farm moved to the UK.........not the sheep; they prefer to stay at home and use my absence to steal some low stray fronds off the olive trees! Follow our progress here and on our new Facebook page..... https://www.facebook.com/tuscanfarmshophttps://www.facebook.com/tuscanfarmshop |
|
Roses under the Tuscan SunAdded: 9th June 2014Summer is well and truly here in Tuscany and at the moment we can provide some lovely bunches of flowers for our holiday lets. They smell as heavenly as they look; I would not plant any other kind!Contact us for your Summers Lease ; Townhouses to Farmhouses in Montalcino and the Val d’Orcia. |
|
Tuscan Spring comes to Country LivingAdded: 17th March 2014This week we will be back in London at the Country Living Spring Fair. Come along for a taste of our delicious 2013 harvest olive oil – and see what other Tuscan goodies we have on sale! |
|
Tuscany Guide - Out Now!Added: 13th March 2014Click here to buy online! Also available in most WH Smiths and many independent retailers
|
|
Farming is not all fun.Added: 12th March 2014R.I.P. Ercolina. This is a reminder to ALWAYS keep your dog under control in the countryside, wherever you are.We have just lost one of our sheep, Ercolina, the first born on our holding, friendly and enquiring. In the UK a farmer is entitled to shoot a dog who savages their sheep. What about the owner?? And this was within a 2 metre high fence well pegged down. Don’t leave gates open, don’t leave dangerous litter (any) and do NOT allow your dog to attack or menace stock or wildlife. Please. There are those of us in the countryside, everywhere, who are trying to make the environment a better place. |
|
Italia!Added: 9th March 2014Magnificent Montalcino! Well, at least according to the article in Italia! magazine’s new Tuscany Guide out yesterday! We couldn’t possibly comment!The article looks at our favourite part of Tuscany (or anywhere else) and has some things you may be familiar with and some that should be new. Have a look and let us know what you think! |
|
Tuscany in Norfolk!Added: 24th February 2014On the 1st March we will be back at Creake Abbey in north Norfolk, near Burnham (up) Market, a great place, but sadly lacking in Ribusuoli artisan extra virgin olive oil!On Saturday this sad situation will be solved for all those coming along with their shopping bags at the ready to carry away some of our Tuscan green gold.....in fact, if you want gold we will also have a little of our saffron to burnish and flavour your cucina! |
|
Sshh; it's the Val d'Orcia!Added: 29th January 2014In the heart of the Val d’Orcia this pine flanked driveway leads to a traditional stone built house, just outside historic Pienza. It will soon be gracing our sales page....and we think also the forthcoming Country Life International article on the Val d’Orcia. Much as we enjoy a quick trip up to the Chianti, it is the Val d’Orcia which is home. Too frequently overlooked (though not by UNESCO) we are sometimes torn between keeping this brilliant place to ourselves and sharing it. ..........Sharing wins. Mostly! |
|
All is fair!Added: 18th December 2013We will be in the UK again this weekend, not in the city but with good Norfolk mud on our boots! Our just picked olive oil will arrive at Creake Abbey Farmers Market a stone’s throw from Burnham Market and the North Norfolk coast (an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). There are some similarities between this part of Norfolk and our part of Tuscany; the buildings are of stone, it is very rural and very beautiful.......but I think that everyone would agree; olive growers they are not! So come along on Saturday 21st from about 9.30 until 3pm to add a taste of Tuscany to some good Norfolk ingredients. http://www.creakeabbey.co.uk/extra-christmas-farmers-market-saturday-21st-december |
|
How was the Fair?Added: 5th December 2013Well we enjoyed it; what about you? After The Chelsea Physic Garden, Elizabeth Street and Country Living in Islington we have enjoyed meeting you and seeing your reactions to our farm holiday home and vintage products. Now for a little extra Christmas present for one of our visitors (real or virtual); get in touch with us before January 1st 2014 marking your email ‘Happy 2014 Toscana’ and we will enter you in a draw for a 2 litre can of our New Season 2013 artisan Extra Virgin olive oil from Ribusuoli. We will draw the lucky winner on January 2nd at which point we will need a physical address from the winner. Iceland or London, it will be sent to you to cheer up your food with some Tuscan sun. As visitors to Chelsea and Elizabeth Street who tasted our 2013 harvest olive oil know, it tastes absolutely delicious, so this is not an empty offer! After we have announced the winner we might (if we get plenty of entrants!) make a special offer on the oil for those who entered but didn’t win! |
|
Come to the Christmas Fair!Added: 24th November 2013We will be back in London next weekend at the Chelsea Physic Garden Christmas Fair AND at the Belgrave Christmas Sunday event in Elizabeth Street....we could not resist the reindeer! A change from our usual deer at the farm! The Chelsea Physic Garden is great fun and it is lovely to walk around one of the very oldest gardens in London; it dates from the 17th century. Our products, being natural and artisan, not to mention using therapeutic plants fit in well with a physic garden or garden of simples (therapeutic plants). We will be bringing along our just pressed oil, more of which over the next week! More on this later in the week! |
Olives Galore!Added: 17th November 2013It has started; the olive harvest is just underway. The luscious Moraiolo, Leccino, Frantoio, Olivastra Seggianese and Pendolino are ripe and being stripped off the trees. We go to the mill for the first time later this morning. Then the moment of revelation: what is the character of the 2013 harvest? Last year the newly pressed oil had a pronounced artichoke flavour.....this year; who knows? Whatever its character we know that our oil is a natural product grown without the intervention of any chemicals, not even those permitted in organic agriculture. We are not yet registered organic; time and money have been too short to go through all the hoops, but treating our land with the utmost respect and NO chemicals has ever been our ethos and practice. |
|||
|
Steam Trains & Truffles!Added: 8th November 2013An original combination of puffa trains and truffles will be seen at San Giovanni d’Asso next to Montalcino, Siena over the next two weekends. I have already drawn your attention to the wonderful San Giovanni Truffle Fair on the second and third weekends of November. You can make these even more memorable by arriving in a vintage steam train from Siena! It gives a whole new meaning to Slow Food!The trains leave Siena station at 9.45 AM and arrive in San Giovanni d’Asso around midday.....Italian trains arrive in time for lunch! The train then starts the return journey at 5PM, by which time you will be truffled out! |
|||
|
After the Fair...Added: 8th November 2013It was good to meet customers old and new at the Country Living Christmas Fair. Encouraging to see that our wonderful Tuscan Artisan extra virgin olive oil from our farm at Ribusuoli near Montalcino has such a following!Good too that the olive oil hand cream that we make with the older oil is such a hit. It is a perfect example of what we try to do; sustainable and cutting waste whilst not compromising on quality. Many farms would sell the oil to wholesalers after which it would end up in mass brands on supermarket shelves. Having experienced that sort of ‘quality’ no wonder so many people in the UK still don’t ‘get’ olive oil! Better on your hands than your salad we say! Our vintage items went down a storm. Great as it encourages Alessandro and I to pursue our passion for typically Tuscan vintage items; from furniture and kitchenalia to hand woven bed linens and garden and agricultural implements. So far it has been our lucky clients in Tuscany whose houses we decorate who have benefitted from these things (when we don’t hold on to them for our own houses!) but increasingly opportunities such as the Fair lets these things be appreciated in the UK too. Contact us at info@toscanarestoration.com if you saw something that you liked....and wondered how you were going to carry it away! |
|||
|
All the fun of the fair!Added: 8th November 2013Tuscany Home & Living/Toscana Restoration will be back at the Country Living Christmas Fair from the 30th October until the 3rd November 2013, bringing Tuscany to London. From our Ribusuoli artisan extra virgin olive oil for your kitchen to olive oil bath products and Tuscan vintage for the rest of the house. Come to see us and talk Tuscany; Montalcino is the perfect place for an autumn or winter break. We have a house to let with beautiful open fireplaces for roasting chestnuts .....or cooking Tuscan style. |
|||
|
Country Living Spring Fair and a few vintage items...Added: 13th March 2013We are going back to London to the Country Living Spring Fair which runs from Wednesday 20th until Sunday 24th March, come and see us!To celebrate this we have put up a few choice pieces of Vintage furniture and ceramics on our Shop page. They are things that we love to furnish our own and clients houses with. Individually they would also fit well into various other decorative situations. See more in London! |
|||
|
|
Happy New Year!Added: 4th January 2013A very Happy New Year to all those visiting Tuscany Home & Living and those who have visited us in person. Maybe some of you could make a New Year resolution to get (back?) to Montalcino and Tuscany in 2013. At the moment we have clear blue skies and mild temperatures; it is great to be out and about here....then nice to get back and make up a blazing log fire to sit in front of in the evening.Our New Year resolution here is to get on line a lot more of what we offer, so look out for some more rentals and even some properties for sale that you will not find on www.toscanarestoration.com! But as always we hope that you will get in touch with any specific (or even non very specific!) queries about what we do and our area: it is the Italian way! Buon Anno a tutti. |
Our Local Favourites...Added: 12th December 2012Sharing the best of what this area has to offer is a big part of our raison d’etre at Tuscany Home & Living so it should not come as a surprise that we will be doing a monthly, or even more frequent, Our Local Favourites spot. At the moment this is shared with Toscana Restoration, next year there will probably be one each!Have a look at my first Local Hero, winemaker Marco Capitoni. You could come and stay with us and taste his wines or contact us for a tour of his winery and vineyard. Saluti! http://tuscanyhomeandliving.com/general/our_local_favourite |
|
Fair at Chelsea Physick Garden, LondonAdded: 30th November 2012Toscana Restoration is back in London Saturday 1st & Sunday 2nd December at the Chelsea Physick Garden Christmas Fair. Their centuries old Olive trees make us feel at home!After the great success of the Country Living Christmas Fair, where Toscana Restoration and our little bit of Tuscany was well appreciated we will be back for a Chelsea weekend (yes, most people there long for a weekend-or a lifetime- in Tuscany; we know) expounding the delights of Montalcino and the Val d’Orcia. Buy a house, come for a holiday or taste the incomparable new seasons olive oil and dream of Tuscany! |
|
Tuscany's coming to London!Added: 5th November 2012Exciting news! A little piece of Tuscany will be coming to London for Christmas in the form of a stand at the Annual Country Living Christmas Fair in the Business Design Centre from the 7th - 11th November 2012.Come and visit us on stand E53. More information can be found on the Country Living Christmas Fair website on the link below: http://www.countrylivingfair.com/xmas/ |
Website by Little Ninja Media