MAPPING TUSCANY

Ochre, terracotta and any existing shade of burnt sienna are the colours that come to mind when thinking of the famous rolling hills. However, for a few months each year, the Tuscan landscape doesn't look like something coming out of a pottery workshop, but like Ireland in summer. Minus the rain. And the Guinness.  TUSCANY IN SPRING It won't last though. Unless Tuscany's warm season is unusally wet like the  incredibly rainy summer 2014 , the landscape will look like this by the end of spring.

It was the sea - not wine, food, a man or the rolling hills - that made me move to Tuscany in 1999. Having grown-up in a landlocked country,  from day one at work I pestered everybody in Montalcino for advice on  the best beach town and the perfect sea view on the Tuscan coast. It turned out to be an easy  mission since the locals sent me unanimously to Castiglione della Pescaia. The preferred seaside destination for people from Siena and Arezzo, Castiglione della Pescaia is also loved by the Swiss and Swedish, hence all the h oliday resorts and camping villages along some of its best beaches.  But unlike Marina di Grosseto or Principina a Mare, Castiglione della Pescaia has been a proper town way before the tourist boom took hold of the Tuscan coast. To  this day the  former fishing village has managed to keep its historic town center, clean beaches and even a handful of fishermen.  WHAT TO DO IN CASTIGLIONE DELLA PESCAIA  Swim and s...

The isle of Elba is a beach paradise, Mediterranean at its best with a hint of the Caribbean thanks to its crystal clear waters - a s long as you don't come in July or August. Elba in high season is obviously still beautiful, but the time spent enjoying the beach will be amazingly short. Most of the day you'll be looking for parking, a free parasol or an unoccupied square meter of sand to lay down your towel before you join the queue for ice cream.  Elba may be the biggest of the seven isles in the Tuscan archipelago and after Sicily and Sardinia already the third largest island of Italy, but it's still... small. In any case too small to absorb the huge amount of tourists scouting for the best beach on Elba from mid June to the first week of September (Italian school holiday time). Hence, the most important advice in regard to beach hunting on Elba is timing. Napoleon's isle is paradise on earth from the second week of September to the second week of June, a...

Pitigliano isn't just another Tuscan hilltop town. It's the  Tuscan hilltop town. No other of them manages to balance so elegantly on top of a rocky cliff. In fact Pitigliano is also called suicide town (at least by my Tuscan native). You'll get the idea once you look down from one of the buildings located right on the edge; but don't do it if you're having a difficult moment in  life.  Pitigliano's skyline

No better way to understand a wine you love, than by meeting the winemaker behind it. This interview with Giovan Battista Basile from the Basile winery in Southern Tuscany's Montecucco DOCG  is the start of a series of articles, which will map out some of the best organic wineries in Tuscany. Other people are into banking, sailing or shoemaking. Which winds blew you on top of a Tuscan hill?   My sister. She owns a beautiful property ( Le Pianore ) in a valley surrounded by untouched nature at the foot of Mount Amiata. I lived with her for four years until my brother Domenico and I decided to buy a piece of land that had been abandoned for years. We immediately decided to plant vineyards so as to produce our own wine. Why Montecucco DOCG? Any interesting facts and figures about your Tuscan wine making region? Montecucco is a fascinating area. When we started out, the DOC had just been born a year before. It was an interesting challenge – new producers in a new DO...