The best way to celebrate your Anniversary: Lasagna and Terrestre Wine Event
Thank you to our friends that decided to celebrate their Fifth Anniversary with a special dinner: gna with Terrestre Wine Event and Baldassarre of Torciano Winery.
We are happy to have been chosen to celebrate such a special day, a anniversary dinner with our recipe for lasagna combined with our wine.
This is what we can read in their blog:
“When we took our trip to Tuscany this past May, we visited the Tenuta Torciano vineyard in San Gimignano, where we enjoyed a fabulous wine tasting and lunch.
The main course at lunch was a fantastic lasagna with Bolognese sauce, made from Mamma Torciano’s recipe and served with a drizzle of truffle oil.
It was so good, that it not only inspired us to try to make it ourselves, but as we thought about what a wonderful dinner it would be to make and share, it also gave us further encouragement to launch Two at the Table.
The lasagna was paired with a number of red wines, but the one that stood out the most was a the 2006 Terrestre. This wine was waaaay out of our usual price range, but we figured, “Who cares? We’re on vacation!”. Plus, we thought it would be a lot of fun to enjoy it again at home, ideally on our fifth anniversary.
So we set on making Torciano’s Lasagna with Meat Sauce on Saturday. (Please note that the link will take you to all the recipes you need for this dish, including home-made pasta, if you’re felling super-motivated!) .
The lasagna turned out great–maybe not as good as Mamma Torciano’s but absolutely delicious. The pasta was cooked perfectly, not quite al dente, but not too soft either. The Bolognese was thick with lots of flavor from the veggies. The Béchamel gave everything a nice creaminess and was a huge step up from the ricotta I’ve used in the past. The lasagna paired perfectly with the wine, which was bold and fruity and more than a match for this heavy, rich dish. (We opened a second bottle too, a 2007 Torciano Baldassarre, which was not quite as good as the 2006 Terrestre, but still very good.)
We finished the night with several rounds of an Italian card game called Seven and a Half and then enjoyed some almond cantucci (small biscotti) and a little Vin Beato as is the custom in Tuscany.
Our anniversary dinner was wonderful and more than worth the effort that went into it. We have a busy work week ahead, so it will also be nice to have some leftovers to fall back on. There’s even enough to bring some for lunch one day this week too!”
Many thanks for the beautiful article and we hope to see you soon here in Tuscany!
Author
Luciana Cilemmi
Luciana Cilemmi, deals with Magazine, Style Director and Co-founder of Tenuta Torciano winery and Tenute Giachi wines and the innovative Viviarium Restaurant of Bottega Torciano- Tenuta Torciano & Winery is part of an international reality that is born in Italy by an initiative of Pierluigi Giachi and Luciana Cilemmi, who have worked for years in the Italian wine market , expanding throughout in the United States, managed and controlled by the american company ' Bellavini winery. Luciana Cilemmi was born in San Gimignano to a family of artists specialised in the restoration of medieval buildings. Having completed her technical studies, she now pursues the interests passed on to her by her family, like her passion for artistic objects, in particular works of art created in Tuscany between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. But she reserves her keenest enthusiasm for the historic works completed in San Gimignano between 1100 and 1300. Alongside her love of medieval history, she is fascinated in wines produced from Tuscan vineyards, which, together with saffron and wool, were the most sought-after goods traded by the wealthy noble families of San Gimignano already in medieval times. Luciana Cilemmi left San Gimignano at the age of 21 and embarked on a pilgrimage in search of knowledge and to discover the new winemaking skills and products that were then developing both in Italy and in France. In the meantime she added to her knowledge of wine by attending specialised courses and becoming a master of wine. On returning to Siena, she discovered a wonderful area near Murlo where she fell in love with the tiny, unspoilt village of Montepescini. She bought the estate of Montepescini where, based on the experience she had acquired over the years, she found a particular lie of the land, special climatic conditions and an altitude suited to the creation of great wines. With enormous enthusiasm, doggedness and considerable effort, a reclamation programme was started to renew the terrain which was then used to plant 30 hectares of specialised vines. Sangiovese is the dominant vine, followed by Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah. Years of experimentation and the introduction of new winemaking techniques eventually led to the creation of Luciana di Memmi’s prestigious wines. Some years ago, Luciana Cilemmi succeeded in realising her dream of a lifetime: to return to her home town, San Gimignano. She was destined to buy the historic palace with the medieval tower, which had been owned by the prestigious Useppi family from 1200 to 1927 and had then passed to the noble and historic Chigi family of Siena. The Useppi were a powerful Sienese family who owned several castles. This beautiful medieval building has an elegant and distinctive façade full of Sienese and Pisan architectural influences. If you find yourself in San Gimignano, make sure you visit the Chigi Tower and Palace. Luciana Cilemmi holds regular events in the rooms of the medieval tower, such as the presentation of wines, both from her vineyards and elsewhere, attended by international journalists, experts from the sector and critics. She also organises exhibitions of works of art and paintings, and press conferences on the subject of "Wine in San Gimignano during medieval times”. Visiting the home of Luciana Cilemmi is like re-living an aspect of the past that will not return except through the imagination of those who have believed and continue to believe in this story.
