Written By Gracie
Where to even begin… We arrived on October 8th, after two bus rides we made it to the city of Siena, for about an hour we explored the winding roads and got lunch. My classic plate of straight meat never disappoints. After lunch, we returned to the bus station and boarded a van to Spannocchia. Let me just start by saying, it was nothing we could ever have imagined. We pictured another variation of raw and simple Paladini, but instead were pleasantly surprised when we climbed the dirt road, rounding the corner to a BEAUTIFUL Italian estate. It looked like a small castle on a hill, overlooking fields, vineyards, and abandoned traditional Italian farmhouses. Breathtaking. We all settled into our alluring, almost medieval rooms, all with floor to ceiling classic wallpaper and ceilings full of gorgeous fixtures. Each of us collapsed into extremely comfortable beds, with layers upon layers of blankets and comforters.
Randall, the current owner of Spannocchia took us on a walking tour of the property, he told us history and one of the best true love stories I’ve ever heard. This property was truly in the making from 1200 ad. With the first establishment being a tower, home to the original family. The tower was then incorporated into every construction on the property from then on. The tower symbolizes a structure of strength and protection, used to fend off unwanted guests and danger, among the thick concrete walls of the manor. Later the estate was split into two major buildings: the bigger more elegant and fabricated building being the owners’ home, second one connected by a hallway but rendered as the servants quarters. After the last few constructions were complete this place was more of a summer home or hunting lodge, it was then abandoned for the most part, where a logging company purchased and cut down the trees in the area then too, abandoned it. The bank repossessed the property until Spannocchia and family bought it. Delfino Spannocchia was a businessman in Florence, but quit his job to pursue his true passion: writing. He bought the property as a way to escape the loud busy city life and his young bustling family (four kids and a wife) to be able to have quiet wings within the estate to write. He wrote 12 published novels throughout his time here on the estate. The Spannocchias then turned this property into a place young architects could come and learn about old Italian buildings and architecture. Here a young Randall accompanied by three fellow architecture students from the University of Kansas journeyed across the pond for this internship. They were dropped off at the front door and told to wait, half an hour went by and they stood waiting, finally Randall knocked. A young beautiful, Francesca Spannocchia, answered the door… One year later, they were married. The two moved back to the States and raised a family, until later returning to take the crumbling estate on and try and revive what was left of it. They successfully rehabilitated it and brought back life, people, tourism, and made it a place of budding internships once again. Spannocchia was back as intended from years and years prior. I told you, the best love story… We ended our arrival day with incredible meats, bread, and pasta.
The next day, we woke up early early—reminded me of high school all over again. We had a delicious breakfast of various cakes, hard boiled eggs, cereal, yogurt, fruits, and the strongest coffee you could ever imagine. After all of our bellies were full and we were buzzing with high doses of caffeine in our blood they set us free in the garden. Terra group had to pull out all the weeds in our path, sift through the soil, not too much, but enough to keep the previous dirt and nutrients towards the top for the next crop to thrive. Let me just say, we went ham, the coffee did not disappoint, and we got done faster than the gardeners could have anticipated ANY Americans could do. After the garden we cleaned up and hiked to the kitchen for pasta making. That was so funny to watch, you could tell who had experience baking and who had never touched raw cooking materials in their life—me being one of those embarrassing noobs… We mixed flour and eggs, making a dough, which we then put through a handheld machine to make extremely thin and sliced flat noodles. As our strands of pasta sat, we continued on to gnocchi. Mixing potato and flour into a dough-like substance, making a long strand of it, and then cutting it into small pieces. The cooks prepared our masterpieces and that was lunch! Delicious! We had the rest of the day free to explore, catch up on sleep, do homework, read and journal, or talk to loved ones back at home. Good first full day.
Woke up Monday again early early (I’m not used to it, I hate it in fact), had the same large breakfast spread and went off in the garden. We continued the previous day’’s tasks but in another area of the large garden. After, we cleaned up to start the next portion of our morning, my favorite activity so far…meat tasting. Not just any meat tasting, but home grown Spannocchia meat. Silvia (who was just the nicest lady, who showed us around and taught us new things everyday), brought us to see some of the pigs which we later tasted. Emma Clift was literally crying because she thought they were beyond cute, while I was an animal, practically salivating and gnawing on the fence. After returning to the estate we learned that prosciutto is hung and dried for about two years before consumption, and that for every kilo it weighs that’s the number of days it stays under salt. She took us to the tasting, but before consuming she made us smell it and inspect it. I, again looked like a dog scratching at my skin and salivating, it was torture. Finally though it tasted unlike anything I’d ever tasted! We learned where the different kinds of meat come from on the pig; prosciutto is the back legs, gelatin from the feet, lardo is the back, capocollo from the front shoulder, salami being the front ‘elbow’ area, gotino the neck, soppressata the head, and plancetta the stomach. Fascinating for a carnivore like me, a bit disturbing to the vegetarians in our group. (I am salivating writing this, sheesh.)
We had the rest of the day after lunch free until dinner. But it was Storm’s birthday so we decided to all dress up like him for dinner. Easiest thing, anyone can be Storm for Halloween, constructed from household items… First take any North Face t-shirt and layer it over a long sleeve, pair it with Dickies (or any type of cargo pants will do), followed by a bucket hat WITH (this is crucial) the draw-string strap, and sneakers, if you really want to complete the look make sure your backpack is open and you are missing your wallet. Don’t forget to constantly say how grateful you are for everything even if there are people less fortunate than you around. It was comical but a great time. We ended the night by stargazing, dancing, and singing in the woods…quite witchy vibes if you ask me.
The next morning, you know the drill by now: early alarm, bussin’ breakfast, followed by garden time. Second half of our morning was about bees! We learned that depending on what kind of nectar and pollen sought out from our buzzy friends, produces different flavors of honey. Each hive produces a selection of queens, the strongest will kill the others and take over her new throne… the hive. Each year the queen produces many baby bees that the hive practically doubles in number, forcing the hive to split and make a new family who finds a new home to build and thrive. We also learned how pesticides are extremely harmful for the production and happiness of bees. The pesticides cover the familiar scent trail that bees use to relocate their hives after their job, collecting nectar. (People, stop hurting the planet and our animal friends!) After all of this information, came the honey tasting, each with a different variation to it. My favorite by far being the Spannocchia produced honey, which was rich in flavor. After, we had lunch and then chilled, ending with a gorgeous sunset and a dinner of pasta.
Tuesday morning, they mixed it up a bit, delicious daily breakfast, then COMPOST time! We made a compost “lasagna” by layering manure, dirt, hay, bran, and charcoal…then repeating. We followed our recipe up with water to sustain the life already cultivating within the manure. After our “lasagna” we had our daily garden time… that day, some of us strayed from mixing dirt and pulling weeds, to removing massive overgrown blackberry bushes. Not fun, painful in fact. Had lunch of soup and classic tomatoes on tasty bread. After lunch, we had our free period until dinner, dinner of pasta and sausage. Very scrumptious. Today was Sebastian’s birthday so we celebrated with horribly sung karaoke for most of the night and disturbingly scary face paint. Hamilton was performed by our own Terra group members!
Wednesday was a full morning of sifting through dirt and removing more thorn bushes. That really was all we did that day. We had classic pasta and tomato sauce for lunch, and consumed an ungodly amount of bread, as usual. It was a good chill day though to relax and reflect on the days and projects we had accomplished in the days prior. Had a quiche-like meal for dinner followed by fried cauliflower and pork. It was tasty. A good chill night.
Finally, our last day! Woke up early for breakfast and gardening…SHOCKER! Then what we had all been waiting for…Spannocchia’s own wine tasting. We saw the canisters filled with squashed grapes. Green grapes for white wine and red grapes for red wine and rosè. To make grape juice the grapes cannot ferment at all, and for red wine vinegar they have to ferment too much, wine is the classic Goldilock scenario…just the right amount of fermentation. We sipped white wine, red wine, dessert wine, rosè, brandy, and the worst thing I have ever consumed: grappa. Rosè is definitely my favorite. About 85%-90% of the wine produced at Spannocchia is served here, the other 10%-15% is sold to local restaurants and stores. After our tasting we had a pasta lunch and then packed for our extremely early morning commute tomorrow to Abruzzo. When I say extremely early I mean murderous thoughts, needing coffee immediately…5 am in the morning. I might hurt someone if I don’t get my daily cup of joe.
Overall this has been a fabulous trip so far, and Spannocchia was definitely one of my favorite places. I definitely will find my way back to this gorgeous estate, hopefully vacationing upon my return, sipping wine on the terraces, and sleeping past 8am!