Tuscany vacation, cooking, walking, truffle-hunting tour

Environment

We produce and serve organic food not because we have an official certification but because we do believe FOOD is one the most responsible sector of the actual environment disaster. It is time to reclaim our REAL food made with fresh local produced ingredients.
In our farming we try to improve the soil fertility and maintain biodiversity through the use of organic fertilizers and compost ,crops rotations and a lot of different local varieties of vegetables and fruits .
The old stone eco-friendly farmhouse - renovated in 2012 using certified green building materials - works with renewable energy produced by sun and wood . We aim to be self sufficient when it comes to energy trying to be completely independent from carbon using woods from our forests and solar panels. The soaps used are all certified organic , the water is from our well , rain is collected in 3 tanks and given to the garden.
The kitchen where the cooking classes take place is in a timber frame building designed and constructed under strict parameters that allow to minimize (and sometimes even eliminate) the energy it requires for warming/cooling. It is a near zero energy building: besides using methods and materials which minimize thermal dispersion, adopts appropriate solutions in order to optimize solar radiation, limiting it in the summer and exploiting it in the winter. Thanks to Mechanical Ventilation Heat Recovery , which employs a heat exchanger, it is possible to recover all of the thermal energy that otherwise would be dispersed.
The design of the kitchen is unique and is a perfect match of modern and rustic elements.

Community

We are part of a network of small producers organizing farmers markets in the nearest villages. On this occasion we promote the importance of buying fresh season produce and the threats of intensive agriculture. What we do not grow, we buy from the colleagues incrementing and encouraging small agriculture and neighboor farmers .
We also do our best to promote local foods, traditional gastronomy and self- production in our territory and with guests coming from all over the world.
At the farm, with the local association we organize workshops on arts and crafts like for example how to make soap with olive oil, how to make candles with bee wax , how to make bread etc... We are big promoters of Do It Yourself , most of the furniture and restoration of them were done by us. We also deal with didactic tours for children with local primary schools. We teach children how to saw , transplant and the importance of eating fresh season vegetables. We take them in the woods and let them listen to the sounds of nature.