Dinner in a Castle | Tuscany Creative Retreat

The last time I posted about my time in Italy, I shared about my day spent “home” catching up on rest, writing in my journal, exploring, taking pictures, and sketching and painting.  If you missed that post, you can read about that day HERE.  In the early evening, the rest of our creative retreat group returned from a day visiting a local organic farm and making pizza from scratch.  As much as I didn’t want to miss out on that experience, the day I took was the one I needed.  It was refreshing and enriching, and I was excited to continue our curated Tuscany experience with dinner at a castle just down the road from the Podere where we stayed.

The Folcieri family, who currently owns the castle, farm, and vineyard, bought it in the mid-1980s, when it was overrun with vines and vegetation, and the castle’s interior was an empty shell.  As you can imagine, they had to add electrical, plumbing, and do extensive repairs and renovations to make the castle a home and functioning vineyard.

The original part of the castle was built in the 11th century as a fortress and farm.  The castle is actually still recognizable from drawings done in the 1400s, which is pretty incredible.

As the owner, Sveva, was giving us a brief tour of the front courtyard before we completely lost the light, someone from our group spotted the most beautiful harvest moon hanging just above the surrounding hills.  It was one of those moments you wish you could hold in your memory forever to view whenever you needed to experience a moment of awe.  A picture can’t even do it justice, but I took a few nonetheless.

Of course, if you live in a castle, you probably have your own chapel.  I mean, duh.  Who doesn’t?

The chapel was enlarged in the mid-1500s, and a bell tower was added at that time.

Sadly, this private chapel, as is often the case, was the victim of theft, and the original artwork over the altar was stolen.  The owners had a Scottish guest who specializes in Renaissance artwork reproductions, so he is in the process of painting a replacement piece for them in exchange for wine.  They were able to locate the original pews and confessional, but many other pieces were stolen when the property was neglected.

And, speaking of wine, the owners learned the chapel was the perfect temperature for storing bottles and barrels of wine.  Even through the hottest days of summer and the coldest days of winter, the interior of the chapel maintains a consistent temperature without climate control.  (The vibrations of modern systems can be detrimental for wine storage.)  The temperature never fluctuates more than three degrees.  Isn’t that incredible?

They were concerned about the possible offense of storing wine in a chapel, so they asked their local priest, and he gave his blessing.

From the chapel, we toured the kitchen garden, which was equally impressive.  It was probably my favorite part of the whole tour.

The kitchen garden sits through an iron gate, right next to the chapel.  At this point, the bell tower glowed from the kisses of the waning evening sun.

The kitchen garden is in the same location it was during the 1300s.  Imagine all the harvest of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs; all of the hands and tools that have tilled that soil and planted seeds.

There was a pond at the center of the garden that was both ornamental and functional.  It collects and stores rainwater, which is funneled through a series of pipes to different parts of the garden for watering.  It’s a clever, ancient system that still works to this day.

Sveva used to manage the garden herself, but in recent years, it became too much for her.  She now hires gardeners to maintain it, but you could tell, as she was showing us around, how much she loves it and still has a passion for gardening.

After our garden tour, we walked into the castle and through another courtyard.  I had to stop a minute to investigate what looked like an old cistern.  I think I’ve said this in a few posts already, but I’m always enamored with how old everything is in Europe.  Not only is it old, but it’s still being used, cared for, and lived in.

We were led into the “new” part of the castle, a 1600s wine cellar addition.

Sveva told us about her husband and son, who manage the wine production.  They age wine in both oak barrels and traditional Italian terracotta vats.  I’m sure “vat” isn’t the right word, but my notes weren’t that specific.  While I found the details about wine production to be interesting, it’s not my world at all.  It’s much like any other creative endeavor – part art, part science, part experimentation, part materials, part circumstances, and part maker.

Here is a picture of a 14th-century map of the property, found by a historian in the Vatican archives.  You could see the original size of the chapel, the original part of the castle, along with the location of the kitchen garden and vineyard at that time.  It’s amazing that the same ground has been producing wine for at least 600 years.

Our group was then served a four-course meal made with vegetables from the garden and other locally sourced ingredients.  Of course, each course was paired with wine.  A long harvest table was set up in one of the old wine cellars, so it was a dream setting for the meal.  We were served pumpkin puree, zucchini lasagna, and homemade noodles, chicken thighs with dried apricots and potato wedges, and shortbread with jam.  Sveva described their signature wines as “Brad Pitt”, classically handsome, and “Johnny Depp”, a bit of a rogue, but still handsome.  As someone who just uses wine for cooking, I tasted the Rosé, and then I think I dropped out after a few sips of Brad Pitt, but I’m not really sure.

If you’ve never been to Italy before, there is one thing you should know.  They eat late, and they take their time at meals.  Americans are always in a rush, but you have to leave that at customs and embrace the loose schedule.  We didn’t finish dinner until 10:30.  Even after a day of leisure, my eyes were heavy towards the end of the meal.

It was such a wonderful experience, it was worth being tired.

Beyond the tour and the meal, I loved learning about Sveva and her family.  Her husband sounds like a real go-getter.  He is a lawyer by trade, and when they bought the property, he knew nothing about construction, farming, or running a vineyard.  He just went for it and learned along the way.  He wakes up before five every morning to tour the vineyard before going to work his day job.  Their son is also getting involved in wine-making and running new experiments, such as using terracotta vats for aging instead of oak barrels.  Living in a castle seems glamorous, but it’s a big responsibility that requires a lot of work.

If you find yourself near Sovicelle in Tuscany, you can arrange private tours, wine tastings, meals, and more at this castle HERE.  You can also follow Sveva on Instagram HERE.