Tuscany Hotels - A wonderful family atmosphere at this country hotel offering traditional accommodation on a farm outside Florence. Painstakingly restored, with a large swimming pool, it has easy access to Florence, Siena and Chianti.
It doesn’t take long for guests to get to know each other when setting and clearing the tables, and during shared meals at the large wooden dining tables. Casanuova is a place for encounter and exchange, of activities and relaxation, a place of pleasure and improvisation. Over the years many visitors have become loyal regular guests and often meet up at Casanuova.
Vine, fruit and olive terraces have been restored and are tended lovingly. As well as a vegetable garden, whose produce is used for the communal evening meals, there is a ground-floor Renaissance style garden, and a brand new self-cleansing swimming pond instead of the usual tiled and chlorinated swimming pool.
The kitchen is the heart of Casanuova. Your hosts use fresh, seasonal produce, where possible organically grown. The fare consists of breakfasts of home-made bread and jams, fresh fruit, muesli and daily surprises, as well as a full evening meal. Snacks and coffee can be ordered as required. The Italian cooks use a lot of imagination to prepare the dishes of the season – and you can watch them at work; they come from the neighbourhood and cook the way they cook at home.
Menus depend on what is available from the garden and from the market in any particular season. In Spring you will eat artichokes, green asparagus, stuffed courgette-blossoms, roast organic lamb or kid; in summer there will be ripe tomatoes in all possible variations, rabbit, pigeon, lots of fruit and vegetables; in the autumn mushrooms and occasionally game.
The wine comes from the estate’s own vineyards. It is grown organically and pressed and bottled on the estate. There is Tilino: 95 per cent Sangiovese grapes, rounded off with 5 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon. It is a vino da tavola, occasionally called Supertoscan. Aged in barriques, it has a ruby colour, and is full bodied with a strong blackberry character. Then there is the Chianti DOCG, a classic of the region. This is a robust red wine, the product of the heavy, loamy soil. Both go brilliantly with the flavoursome Tuscan meat and vegetable dishes.
Since 1982 it has been a strictly organic farm: no herbicides, pesticides and inorganic fertilisers. Since 1997 this has been supervised by the CCPB (Consorzio Controllo Produttori Biologici), and produce carries the official mark certifying organic quality. Five hectares of the farm is given over to olives: try their full-bodied extra virgin oil, delicious with garlic on a piece of bread.
During restoration work great care was taken to preserve the simple character of the typical casa colonica. Today Casanuova looks exactly like the estates which for centuries characterised the landscape and shaped its economic structure, starting with its rich colours and continuing with the use of old roof tiles and terracotta floor tiles. The former estate chapel is now used for exhibitions and meditation.
