Sweet Siena Daytrip
To visit Tuscany, one must visit Siena. Or at least that is what Mary Frances has repeatedly told me throughout our relationship and this phrase has only increased since we moved to Europe! Therefore, we scheduled a daytrip to Siena!
How?
Firstly, we could have easily gotten to Siena with a car. We could have rented from the airport or the Florence train station. However, we love to make life complicated so we went with public transportation!
Every 15 minutes, there is a direct bus to Siena from Florence bus station (next to the train station). The details are incredibly hard to find online and you cannot buy tickets ahead of time.
Travel Tip: Have faith in the Italian bus system and there are buses every 15 minutes.
However, there is one big important detail, one is the fast, most direct bus while the other bus stops at every place! Thus, be patient and wait for the bus that gets to Siena in an hour!
Getting From Siena
Once in Siena, for our daytrip, we could easily store our bags in the bus station for €5 each. In order to get to Rome, we could either retrace our steps back to Florence and take a train. The more economical route and our chosen route was through Flixbus to Rome. The tickets were cheap and conveniently left after our tour!
What to Do??
Siena is a beauitful small village in the heart of Tuscany. From food and wine, the city boasts of fantastic trattorias and open spaces to gorge on the food.
For us, well, Mary Frances, it meant getting to one of her favourite wine regions - Brunello! Plus, tours from Siena focus more on the surrounding countryside beauty and their picturesque villages! Our tour was through Tuscan Escapes and included stops at three wineries, Montepulciano village, and lunch! Mary Frances prefers their tours over anyone else in Italy dating back to her first trip to Italy!
Onto Siena
Our morning began quite early as we wanted to get to Siena before 9am, but also have time to explore the city since I have never been there! Mary Frances was mind and allowed me a whole hour there! (However, it is one of my favourite hours and there was no one on the streets!)
As mentioned above,, we went to the Florence bus station in hopes of catching the fast bus at 7:00 as we were told at our hostel that it was the fast one. Thankfully, we missed it as it turns out it was the slow one! We caught the next fast one at 7:15 and headed on our way! It was very roomy and we enjoyed the roller coaster bus ride through the hilly countryside to Siena!
Once in Siena, the baggage storage is underneath the bus station and we followed the signs to the underground luggage storage.
The 60 Minute Tour
I had a lovely tour guide for my quick 1 hour tour of Siena. As one can tell from the pictures, Siena city centre sits on a beautiful hill. The cathedral is equally as beautiful as Florence and I was stunned to find something similar as I thought Florence was really unique!
The rest of my hour tour included stops at the bakery and cafe to have some great Italian espresso. For the other bits, we just wandered through the streets noting which restaurants we would want to try!
Brunello Tour
Why This tour and company?
As I alluded to earlier, this is Mary Frances’ favourite wine region in the world. She claims it has the perfect combination of Tuscan charm, amazing countryside views, and the wine. Brunello is also recognised as one of the best wine regions as the aged wine can sometimes reach over $80 a bottle for a normal year of wine.
This tour company also has fantastic tours throughout the wine to the other well known Tuscan regions. If so inclined, they even offer private tours! For us, we are quite happy with the small group of 8 that fits comfortably in a mini van!
History
Once in our minivan, our guide began the history of Montepulciano. Since we are in posh wine country, there are obviously loads of weird rules that are designed to keep the traditions alive and prevent other from stealing their methods! Outside of the fact the wine had to contain 100% sangiovese, it also had to be from this area of Tuscany and near the village of Montepulciano. This wine would be called Rossi and is the standard wine from the area.
In order to become a Brunello, the wine has to be very special. From picking, the wine must be aged at least five years and adhere to the usual complex Italian rules. Throughout the day, we learned there is a committee that will uimateky determine if the wine is good enough to be aged and might be a Brunello one day!
Casanova delle Carbaie
For our first stop, it was at the classy Casanova. It was a simple winery with an elegant tasting room. We tasted 3 wines:
- IGT - Considered the base model of Tuscan wine, it typically consists of 30% merlot and then 70% San G grapes. The only rule is all the grapes have to come from the Tuscan region. Overall, not too bad, but not worth bringing home in a suitcase!
- 2015 Rossi - this wine is considered unique to each winery as they can put their own stamp and brand on it. At Casanova, Rossi spends 1 year in oak barrels before spending the last months in a stainless steel tank. We enjoyed this vintage even though we were too early for the “latest” Rossi as the 2016 is released in 3 months!
- 2013 Brunello - Considered to be the star of any tasting, the Brunello spends 2.5 years in oak barrels before spending the remaining 2.5 years in steel tanks. This one really isn’t oaky or too strong and we really like it! We can definitely tell this vintage is much better than the Rossi! A quick google search shows us that this bottle easily sells for $80 back home so we buy this bottle for €30. Whilst enjoying the 2013, we heard the 2012 is even better so we add it to our list!
Travel Tip: if we remember in 2021, the 2015 vintage is suppose to be spectacular!
Village of Montepulciano
For a special treat, we stop in the small village of montacullino! The village would take a fast walker about 10 minutes to explore so we took our time wandering through the streets!To its name as the “birthplace” of Montepulciano Brunello, we thought this village had more wine shops than people! Every other shop was a wine store or some sort of tourist shop compared to a normal village. We would love to stay here but we don’t know where we would eat!
Cava D’Onice
For our third location, we combined it into lunch and an unique tasting at Cava! First, it was one of the smallest wineries we have visited as the garage served as a part time winery! However, the views were absolutely stunning as the house overlooked the beautiful Tuscan Valley!
Cava has a very interesting backstory. His father was a wine consultant who threatened to disown his son if he entered the winery business because the father knew it would be a hard life. Fast forward to college, the son ended up buying property and starting his own winery! Since the winery grew up in the past 20 years, while boutique, Cava incorporates the latest technology while employing organic techniques.
Mamma Mia!
First, my mouth is currently drooling whilst writing about this experience. The homemade food prepared by the owners wife was SPECTACULAR!! For an appetiser, we had fresh bread with tomatoes and homemade olive oil served with locally grown charcuterie.
For our main, we had wonderful pasta with fresh tomato sauce. Just amazing. You could tell it was freshly cooked!! Lastly, obviously Mary Frances’ favourite dish, we had strawberry Panna Cotta. Safe to say we thoroughly enjoyed the meal!!
The pigs were grown by my neighbour, here is the video of the pig!
Cava Owner
Now the Wine
Throughout the meal, we had an assortment of their wine. We started out with the Rose which I wasn’t a huge fan although MF quite enjoyed it (too hard to tell if it was the wine or food!). We also had their Rossi and Brunello, both were extremely good! We ended up buying their 2017 Rossi and 2014 Brunello! In the end, we definitely preferred Cava over Casa!
Piombaia
As we entered our third and final winery, MF thought she recognised this one. Unsurprisingly, it is very easy to remember for a cat lover as the logo is a black cat! This winery is our first “biodynamic” winery which in common terms is new way to say “super” organic. Essentially, everything is organic but taken to a new extreme as they don’t do anything to the neighbouring soil.
In addition to the unique biodynamic status, Piombaia is one of the highest vineyards in the valley! Whilst it doesn’t make a difference for us common man, it does alter the complexity of the wine (supposedly).
- IGT - similar to our first tasting, this is the standard wine. It really wasn’t bad.
- Rossi - We didn’t find this one bad either. It was really good and we could tell the difference between this one and the IGT. Since we are suckers, we bought this bottle.
- Last but not least - 2014 Brunello - Again, the king of wines in this region. We tried to remember when MF visited and it turns out she visited in 2014! Obviously, we had to buy a bottle so she could remember when she visited!
Thoughts on the Tour:
Overall, one can never go wrong with a full day wine tour in the heart of Tuscany. However, this one will always hold a special place since we had an absolutely, fabulous homemade lunch!
The Unchartered Summary:
- We would highly recommend Tuscan Escapes tour group! They have a wide variety of tours depending on your travel plans, budget, and taste plans! More importantly, each tour is limited to 8 people so it is a great experience!
- If Tuscan Escapes doesn't fit your needs, MF also recommends Grape Tours from her earlier times in Tuscany! We would also recommend the Chianti region which is accessible from both Siena and Florence!
- If you go solo, I would HIGHLY recommend a visit to Cava as that experience was worth the tour price itself!
- Do not forget to check the bus times in Florence before heading to Siena as you will regret it later!