aandrews

I'm planning a trip to Tuscany for myself and 5 family members (husband, aunt, uncle, two cousins) in the late April or early May timeframe. Our vision is to rent a villa for one week to use as our home base and take day trips to explore the region. Looking for advice on the best areas to look for rentals in, as well as any referrals for reputable rental companies. Some of the things we are interested in would be as follows:

Cooking lessons (either at the villa or elsewhere)
Wine tasting
Truffle hunting (not sure we will be in the right season for this)
Exploring the regional cuisine
Enjoying the beautiful countryside

This trip will be mainly relaxation focused (daily Aperol Spritzes on the patio are also on the agenda) and we want to eat the best food of our lives that we can dream about when we come home. Any advice that would help as we get the planning started would be much appreciated!

letsgeaux

www.chianticortine.it I will recommend a place that we have been to before and loved and are scheduled to go back to in the spring of 2018. The villa is La Canonica di Cortine. It is out in the middle of the vineyards but the nearest town that can be found on a map is San Donato in Poggio which is about halfway between Florence and Siena. The two cities are an easy drive away as are many of the smaller Tuscan hill towns. It is in the heart of the Chianti region so needless to say you will have no trouble finding plenty great wine tasting opportunities. There are several excellent local restaurants nearby in addition to the many fine dining options in the cities. And the scenery is gorgeous.

massimop

You will not be in Italy for any of its truffles seasons, although if you go right at the beginning of April, you might catch the very tail end of the truffle season around San Giovanni d'Asso in the part of Tuscany known as "le Crete", just south of Siena. Truffle hunting will be over but there will still be some truffles about, I should think. As Spring progresses, fresh truffles will have disappeared completely, and you will only find preserved ones of lesser flavor.

I can't tell if you are choosing Tuscany because you specifically like Tuscan regional cuisine, or because the word "villa" and "Tuscany" seem to belong together in popular ideas of spending a week in one place in Italy, but most people -- whether foodie visitors or native Italians -- would not consider Tuscan regional cuisine the most alluring of Italian regional cuisines. Tuscany is a big place, with a coast as well as interior vinyard valleys, but if you are looking for a villa in the popular wine country areas, realize that this is historically a very soil-poor area of Italy and the historic cuisine is nowhere near as lush and bountiful and imaginative as you will find in other regions of Italy, Soups, bean dishes, saltless bread, eggless pasta (and not much of it) plain grilled foods or simple salamis and sheep cheese are the core of the cuisine. In spring, you will be at the beginning, rather than the end of the growing season, ahead of most fresh fruits and veg.

Many devoted foodies head to Piemonte for the "best food of their lives" (although autumn is better than spring for Piemontese classics) and Le Marche and Emilia-Romagna (the latter for pasta fanatics) also make great food destinations.

For my money I would head to Sicily in April or May for cooking classes (that is a GREAT regional cuisine to learn how to cook). I would also consider Campania (the areas around Salerno, the Amalfi coast, Paestum) for food and cooking thrills, especially if you like seafood.

But if you are dreaming of Tuscan scenery + plus Renaissaice art and history, then by all means go. But maybe ahead of time, browse through some purely Tuscan cookbooks -- there are several very good ones -- and take note of which dishes are springtime dishes and what PART of Tuscany they are from. Areas around, say, PItigliano, eat very differently from areas around Lucca or Chianti, and Florence and Pisa each have their own cusines. You won't necessarily find dishes or treats from one town in another town.

On a very minor note, it is possible that Aperol Spritzes are now popular all over Italy, just like you can find bagels all over America these days. But normally I associate them with Verona and the Veneto. Most rural Italians don't drink cocktails -- although I confess I've never really sought out cocktails in Tuscany outside of Florence (which claims to have either invented or perfected the Negroni, I can't remember).

HappyTrvlr

Check out the website for Chianti and More, agent Karin. The properties they list are only leased by them and they know them well. They also will arrange for those extras you mentioned. They sent a fabulous chef to our villa for a special family celebration. Highly recommend this agency that is located in Psnzano. We had a great experience for our family group.