A lot. Our restaurant and guest rooms are closed this year but still we’ve been busy with wine tastings and the introduction of our long awaited red wine to the world. Since we pair each of our wines with a small taste, I’m working every day in the kitchen. Then there is the vegetable garden, the vineyards and the orchards that all need so much attention right now. I don’t have much spare time to post, but here’s a few pictures to tell the story.
“Things That Crack” have always been an important part of every Petraia tasting. While they change frequently, today we served, clockwise from top left… Polenta crack, emmer crack, beet chips and puffed buckwheat. Stay tuned for the recipes.
New potatoes, peas and carrots with asparagus, lovage, wild fennel and malva flower to pair with our 2011 Primaia white
Red beet cavatelli. We serve this with new peas and braised wild boar. The perfect pairing for our red wine “PRIMAIA DUE”
Things are starting to happen in our apple orchard
Our chick peas are almost ready to harvest. Each pod has just one, sometimes two chick peas. That’s a lot of shelling!
the daily harvest
And preserving the harvest – from left pickled plums, lacto-fermented chioggia beets and carrots, radishes and olives
Our recently harvested garlic
Nigella seed pods and Chamomile flowers drying
Lyle guards a few windfall apricots destined for the compost.
Here he is again showing off our white wine vineyards all trimmed, tied and looking perfect after weeks of work
Lavender in the early evening light
Figs coming along nicely
Can you spot the bee coming in for a landing in the lavender?
Click here to see our bees making lavender honey
The view over Chianti from our front terrace at dinner.