The Estate Table in Chianti

The road to the estate is lined with cypress and takes longer than the map suggests, which is the first sign that the day will not be hurried.

We arrived at eleven to find the harvest in progress: four people, a small tractor, and a dog supervising from a safe distance. By one there was a table under the fig tree, and by ten past one there was wine from the barrel that had not yet been bottled, which is one of the great privileges of being invited at all.

“The best table in Tuscany is not in a restaurant. It is under a fig tree, twenty metres from the barrels.”

Lunch was five things and took three hours. Tomatoes with oil pressed that morning. Ribollita. A chicken roasted with rosemary from the garden. Pecorino and honey. Figs from the tree above us, which we were invited to pick ourselves, and did.

The estate takes a small number of guests for lunch during harvest and a smaller number for dinner in the winter. There is no website to speak of and no system for booking. You write, and someone writes back, and if the week works, you go. It remains the most civilised arrangement in the wine world.