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Le Corti
The Corsini family has been in the oil business for about 500 years, and the tradition is tangible. Paul Ferrari harvested olives alongside Dino and Mario, the adult children of contadini (tenant farmers) who themselves have a child who lives and works on the estate. The property's 15,000 olive trees are still picked by hand, and the fruits of the harvest are crushed on site in an authentic stone mill. Most of Corsini's employees at harvest time take their payment in oil rather than cash, giving credence to this oil's reputation as "liquid gold." The current passion behind Le Corti belongs to Prince Duccio Corsini, who revived the family's long dormant Le Corti Estate in 1992 for the purposes of wine and oil production. For decades, the Corsini family had spent only short holidays in the splendid Renaissance Villa on Le Corti Estate. And upon the death of Tommaso Corsini in 1919, the Villa remained empty and was closed up until 1992 when Duccio decided to make it his permanent home. He opened up and refurbished the rooms and apartments and at the same time re-arranged the garden, reintroducing its original Renaissance layout. At the same time, he decided to abandon the traditional method of managing farm produce, whereby wine, oil and cereals were sold as "raw materials" to those who processed and sold them. The idea, which was the driving force behind the estate's modernization, was to cater direct to consumers, by providing them with oil, wine and country life. Duccio's encounter with winemaker Carlo Ferrini wrote the first chapter of this story with the beginning of wine growing and production; it has since become the core activity of Le Corti Estate and is held in high regard both in Italy and abroad. The Estate's traditional production of extra virgin olive oil has remained unchanged, although the technology used to extract and preserve the oil has been improved. Duccio and his wife Clotilde, who have a son and a daughter--Filippo and Elena Clarice--are proud of their relationship with end consumers and every year open the doors of their splendid Villa to host Alla Corte del Vino; the wine fair, now at its sixth edition, has presented the finest Tuscan wines annually since 1997.
Tuscany
Toscana, famous for its art, architecture, rolling hills, and smooth beaches, is the cradle of the Renaissance. It is this popular destination that gave us da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Puccini. It's no surprise then that Toscana is the birthplace of Italy's most artful and elegant cuisine. Tuscan cooking is often described as una cucina povera, "a kitchen without frills." Characteristic of all Tuscan food is the high quality of the ingredients and the wide use of herbs, including thyme, sage, rosemary, tarragon, fennel and chile pepper. Oil and bread dominate this uncomplicated cuisine. Vegetables, whether they're grilled, roasted, or raw, are always dressed in the region's peppery olive oil. And no Tuscan meal would be complete without bread (always unsalted). Tuscans keep fat at a distance and the spit or the grill close by. Meats -- beef, chicken, and rabbit -- are usually roasted with rosemary or fennel or grilled. Most are accompanied by a lemon wedge, the Tuscan idea of a sauce. Along the coast, dishes are based on fish, with baby eel, caught at the mouth of the Arno, a specialty found only in Tuscany. The simplicity that is so typical of the Tuscan countryside was certainly not observed by the Medicis, who designed elaborate banquets and opulent menus. But these excesses were the domain of the court and nobility; locals ignored the excesses and continued eating local vegetables and beans, incorporating those into Tuscany's famous thick soups. Olive oil is so pervasive in Tuscan cooking that it's even used in sweets, such as the local favorite, castagnaccio, a cake made with chestnut flour, fennel, raisins, and pine nuts. Generally, desserts are as simple as Tuscans' other foods. A common after-dinner treat is biscotti dipped into a glass of amber-colored Vin Santo. Siena is home to panforte ("strong bread"), a rich, flat cake invented during the Crusades to sustain the troops.
Shipping
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Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
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