The beauty of the Tuscan wine season

Back to Tuscany for another culinary holiday at my friends' Cristina and Michael beautiful agriturismo "Il Cantastorie".

With one of the best excursions for a wine lover like me: a wine maker in the Montalbano area, the Azienda Agricola Betti in Quarrata.
I felt like a very happy bunny there, totally in my element among the trucks full of grapes, the busy people and the beautiful, intense and pleasantly intoxicating smell of freshly crushed grapes. :)
And I saw my very first crusher-stemmer (a genial machine that removes the stems from the grapes and crushes them practically at the same time) in action! (see movies here and here)

The wine tasting with lunch that followed was another great experience that made the beautiful day even more glorious!

After that took with me a bottle of Prunideo, Betti's best wine made with 90% rigorously hand-harvested Sangiovese and 10% Cabernet, and drunk it for dinner tonight with Michael and Cristina. A great, robust  wine with 12 months in oak to give it even more character.
If you happen to find a bottle somewhere, don't leave it on the shelf, oh no... ;)

Bounty of grapes!

A verrrry happy bunny :)

The beauty of agricultural Tuscany...

From here to infinity...

The crushed grapes are pumped into the steel containers to undergo the fermentation

Men at work (manually mixing the grapes to ensure full color and aroma's)

The cellar

Ready for the wine tasting