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I-Florence by Dotflorence staff is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione-Non opere derivate 2.5 Italia License.
Based on a work at www.i-florence.com
Posts Tagged ‘tour’
It’s Vino Novello time!
It’s new wine time, or Vino Novello, as we Italians call it.
Vino Novello is the first of the crop; it goes on sale on November 6 and it’s going to be available through February, not later than Easter.
Beaujolais Nouveau, French version of the New Wine, goes on sale the 3rd Tuesday of November and will be available through Easter.
Vino Novello goes from grapes to wine in about 20 days 
and has a unique taste that varies according to the kind of grape and the place where it is grown.
But not all Italian regions are actually outputting this kind of wine: infact, most novello’s producers can be found in Tuscany, Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Emilia-Romagna and Sardinia.
Vino Novello has a very short life: it lacks tannins, which are wine’s most important and primary preservatives. With no tannins, any wine will go bad in a short period of time. So, now you know: once the bottle is opened, it must be drunk quickly!
This kind of wine is made from a different process than normal red wines: the difference lies in the fermentation process: grapes are placed in big vats, then are then closed off and the oxygen is eliminated by pumping in CO2.
This technique is known as carbonic maceration, and involves whole grapes to be fermented in a carbon dioxide rich environment prior to crushing.
Vino Novello is ideally drunk with light first courses, white meats or fresh cheeses, but also pizza, salumi and, above all, roasted chestnuts, or caldarroste, as we call them here in Italy.
So, are you ready to raise a glass of Vino Novello, tasting a little sip of the new vintage?
Pair it with a handful of caldarroste, and you’ll get the picture 
Perugia & Assisi ( by car)
Today you will take a full-day tour in the green Umbria area and visit two of its most fascinating cities – Perugia and Assisi. Man has been living in this region for at least 200,000 years since the Paleolithic age and this is evident in the many archeological finds of the territory.Perugia was an Umbro village that later became Etruscan and the most important center in the Upper Tiber Valley. Perugia is today a thriving town with an important international university and one of the most beautiful squares in Europe, the Piazza IV Novembre. 
Steep streets pass through the ancient gates of the nucleus that was once the Etruscan center. In the center of the square you will see the beautiful Fontana Maggiore, a fountain built in the 13th century in order to bring water into the center via the acqueduct from Mount Pacciano. The fountain, one of the best examples of High Gothic in Italy, is formed by two basins and is decorated by the sculptures Nicola and Giovanni Pisano. One side of the square is taken up by the Palazzo dei Priori; this medieval building is now the town hall. In this square you will also see the gothic Basilica di San Lorenzo. Do you like chocolate? Perugia is the home of the Perugina chocolate factory. In October the town hosts a gigantic chocolate festival where you can taste dozens of samples. The town is packed with tourists in this period and chefs in the restaurants use their talents to invent many dishes using chocolate as the main ingredient.Your Umbrian excursion continues with a visit to Assisi.One of the most peaceful places on earth, Assisi is the birth place of the venerated Saint Francis. » Read more…