La Cerreta is a 140 hectare ' biologica' farm, that is, organic with no poisons or chemicals used.
There are five star holiday accommodation villas available for large groups and they hold events such as weddings there too.
Two red wines, a white and a liqueur made from ostrich eggs were also sampled (although I gave the liqueur a miss!) The grape varieties used included grechetto and malvasia.
There are many parts to this farm and we started at the ostrich pens. They breed ostriches for many purposes - meat for salami, pate & pasta sauces, feathers for costumery, eggs for breeding, selling on, liqueur and pasta making, and leather for handbags and shoes. The baby ostriches twenty days old were already quite big. The adult birds in pens are grouped with one male and four females.
On our first trip to Europe in 1983 one of the big questions was ' Where are the animals?' Over time we came to realise that the answer is that the animals are housed indoors. Today we went to a see a dairy herd of 275 Holsteins in their huge airy shed. These cows had their own computers on their ankles which sends back all sorts of information to the computer of the herdsman. We visited the dairy where they are milked and also saw their food production area, mainly corn.
They have extensive solar panels on the barn roof however the dust created in the preparation of the animal feed severely interferes with the production of electricity. Additionally they have a power generator run from the manure from the cow yards. This biogas recovery system uses the gases from the manure to produce electricity.
La Cerreta has a little tourist train which usually carries the visitors around the farm. Today we rode in a mini bus through the olive groves to the vineyards and past some of their contemporary art installation.
Included in the price of the tour was the opportunity to sample some of their products and we very much enjoyed their olive oil on bread, the ostrich pate for spreading on crostini and the ostrich salami.
Two red wines, a white and a liqueur made from ostrich eggs were also sampled (although I gave the liqueur a miss!) The grape varieties used included grechetto and malvasia.
We had a great morning with our very personable guide Angela, and came home with some wine, a bottle of olive oil and a bottle of the ostrich pate. We highly recommend this tour, even if you already think you know about farming.
Your new Italian word for the day is 'struzzo' - ostrich.
Not a partridge in a pear tree but a pigeon in a pine tree! These pigeons coo almost all day. Sometimes you do have to think of them as a charming part of Italy.
But that wasn't where the day ended! See my post on the folkloric dancing for the evening's entertainment.
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