Welcome and Benvenuti to all my Lovely Followers around the World,
Fresh Tuscan Grapes on my kitchen table. Fot J Finnigan
As we strolled through the carpark in Fiano on Saturday morning the air was full of the sweet smell of crushed grapes and back in our little bit of countryside the cracks in the tarmac outside Villa Bacio were full of wine overflows, you could almost get drunk on the fumes! So yes, the vendemia or grape harvest is almost complete and the new young wines are already being drunk by the locals. What a wonderful, if noisy time of year!
Earlier in the week two copies of that gorgeous magazine Envy Italy arrived. I do like the hard copies, but you can also read it free on-line, so no need to miss out! My beautiful daughter Sharon is joint Editor of this lovely publication, which is full of everything you need to know about the best things that Italy has to offer. The theme is ‘Eat, Stay, Love’ and this Autumn Winter edition has a focus on ‘gourmet’ featuring the finest foods and wines in the Country. Wonderful features too, so go on spoil yourselves! Envy Italy Mag
Meanwhile, Fiano is preparing for the formal celebration of the winning the much coveted banner at the Calambur event a couple of weeks ago! If you woud like to meet the locals and join in the celebrations get your tickets ASAP!
Something else to celebrate here in Italy is the wonderful range of mouth watering cheeses. Italy’s main source of milk for cheesemaking is from the herds of sheep, many are moved across the countryside herded by shepherds from one bit of pasture to another.
They are often assisted by the big gorgeous white Maremmena sheepdogs, easily mistaken for sheep, which certainly fools any predators! The resulting cheese is called Pecorino (Italian for sheep) and is truly delicous ranging form a very soft young version to a very mature hard one. Other cheeses to love include Buffala Mozzarella and the creamy soft Burrata, which I adore, the latter being made from both cow and sheep’s milk, so you woud need to check if avoiding Lactose. Foto petGuide.com
Meanwhile, yesterday Sunday, the weather was lovely and Roberto Manetti, our local sculptor, finally unvieled his lovely sculpture, ‘Le Speranza che Le Mani’, which does not easily translate into English. So perhaps one of my local Italian readers might send me the English version. The sculpture shows three of Roberto’s charming little characters holding hands across a globe, which signifies to me the reaching out in friendship across the world. I love it. Foto J Finnigan
And, the final celebration of the week was Silvio Berlusconi’s 83rd birthday. Well, love him or hate him, he keeps forging on, at the edge of the political scene with his long suffering and much younger fiancé, Francesca Pascale, who was absent from the birthday party in Arcora. How long are you normally a fiancé? It’s been a few years now. I wonder who is postponing the wedding; Silvio, Francesca or Dudu the dog. There are rumours……watch this space!
Well, enough of that already. Time to get this blog off to you lovely people and relax in the sun before lunch.
have a great week and do drop me a line. I love to hear from my readers.
Salute June x
PS visit my website at My site
The Continuing Adventures of Joanna Wilde
Along with the rest of the western world, we have just celebrated San Valentino, when the single men chase replacements for their Mamas and single women chase men for love and romance. Maybe that’s a little unfair, we do have a number of single men locally who are happy to stay at home with Mama and have the occasional dalliance. I hope you found your valentine last week!
But back to romance; I have just read a lovely article in 
Gosh, how does one follow that? Well, if you are not already here, you are likely to be dreaming of Italy right now. A fabulous magazine that will have you drooling even more is 
Now, most of you know that my other love is Italian Fashion and I spotted this beautiful cardigan by 
Junefinnigan's Weblog 