Bici/Cucina/Vino Week in Lecce
Who know that just after a knife, saucepan or corkscrew, that a bicycle was the best way to get to know the local food and wine?
Bici /Cucina /Vino
In this class you’ll:
- Spend your mornings bicycling wine and olive country, and along the Mediterranean coast as a way of better understanding the local food and wine
- Master 6 shapes of fresh pasta production, using only a butterknife, a rolling pin and the (clean) spoke from an old umbrella
- Critically taste (and then drink freely) 17 different local wines, all sourced with 25 kilometers of the school, from grapes that have been in Southern Puglia for at least 200 years
- Bicycle to local winery, with a tour and guided tasting by the owner
- Bicycle to an olive grove and finally grasp extra virgin olive oil: Production, history, ascertain quality and learn to critically taste. This is often the biggest surprise of the course, how different the artisanal reality is from supermarket expectations
- Enjoy these chalkboard talks over wine: Who eats what where in Italy? The history of Italian wine. Italy’s contribution to world coffee culture. The materials of kitchen gear. 1493: Southern vegetables. Olive oil fraud and what to do about it.
- Begin to understand Italy, Italian food and Italian wine as an expression of the territory, history, geography and climate
- Build Italian daily lifestyle habits, living for a week in one of Italy’s prettiest cities. By walking the same streets with a slower pace, you’ll get to know locals, the vendors, patrons in coffee and wine bars. You’ll also pick up enough Italian to play a part in the local community
- Prepare 25 local Mediterranean side-dishes, each dripping with high-quality extra virgin olive oil
- Revel in 10 healthy, wine-soaked feasts. Reconfirm your faith in humanity with time spent emotionally and intellectually connecting with people from all over the world, united through a love of Italian food and wine
- Learn about the history of amari (Italy’s after dinner drinks). You’ll finish many if not most meals with a visit to what must be Southern Italy’s largest private amaro bar
- Gain access to all the recipes, tips and tricks and all of our password protected content, not just for the class but all of our classes. In that email we also include all the other students’ emails so that you can keep in touch and meet up all around the world (when you do send an email with pictures). We’ll also include the password to our playlists (everyone asks for them)
NB:- While you’ll be eating, drinking and working with local ingredients, this course is designed- once home- to give you skills to apply them to your local produce. You’ll naturally widen your gaze to the great ingredients already available in your community, rather than focusing on importing them from other parts of the world.
To Logistics at a Glance for Bici/ Cucina /VinoLogistics at a Glance: Bici/Cucina/Vino Week in Lecce
When: From Monday morning to late Friday night, held several times throughout the year. See our calendar
Where: In the historic centre of Lecce, in Puglia. In our owner’s private home
Daily schedule: from 10:00 to 15:00 and then from 18:00 until 23:00 or later
Taught in: English
Who is the teacher? Our owner has been teaching the food, wine and olive oil of the Puglia to students from 59 countries for the last 22 years. He is a sommelier of wine (AIS) and a sommelier of extra virgin olive oil (FIS) and has been a professional wine writer for magazines since 2010. He also lectures on behalf of the region of Puglia and annually teaches university classes here in Italy
Wine: At least 16 different wines, all sourced from historically-present (at last 200 years), autochthonous grapes, grown, produced and bottled within 25 kilometers from the school. All poured (generously) and explained by an Italian-trained sommelier
Cost: 1995 Euro in 2024. Starting in 2025, 2295 Euro
Bicycle Supplement: 345 Euro. Covers E-bike, sag wag and bicycle guide
Twice-daily meeting point: Under the column in Piazza Sant Oronzo (Lecce’s main piazza—see map below). We meet under the column each time (never at the school) to facilitate many local market visits
Walking: About 4,000 daily steps. And about two hours standing in the kitchen
Diet restrictions: We’re happy to serve you gluten-free pasta but we won’t be able to make it. If you can’t touch regular flour and/or pasta, this is not the class for you
FAQ for Bici/Cucina/Vino Course
Q: I really, really love bicycling up mountains until my bile production plummets, I hear the voices of dead relatives and I need hourly blood transfusions, you know, just like my favorite bicyclists on TV do. Can we do that?
A: No. This course is for ‘Sunday’ cyclists. We bicycle out to see something, learn about it (vineyards, olive mills, a nursery for fruit trees) and we discuss how it affects the local wine and cuisine. We bicycle back, take showers and then have lunch together (bring your dirty bicycle clothes with you to lunch and we’ll have them washed and ready for you for the next day). Daily distances start at about 15 k and go up to 62 kilometers (cut in half, before and after a seafood lunch on the Ionian) on the last day. This is cultural/culinary cycling. Bring running shoes for your bicycles, not cycling cleats.
Q:…and so how much do…
A: We make fresh pasta, cook, have culinary lessons, taste wine and feast together in the evenings. Most lunches are prepared by the staff with the exception of the last day, when we have lunch on the coast. Bicycling is an extension of understanding the local food and wine, rather than a break from it.
Q: Are they E-bikes?
A: Yes. You can elect not to turn on yours but our fleet is 100% E-bikes. This is especially valuable for equalizing couples and for amalgamating the group.
Q: How much is the bicycle supplement and what does it cover?
A: 345 Euro. This covers the bicycle guide, a ‘sag wag’, water and sports drinks and the rental of a high-quality E-Bike. You can pay supplement in cash on Monday.
Q: Do I need traveller’s insurance?
A: Yes, with pandemics, invasions and transportation strikes, today traveller’s insurance is money well-spent. Make sure it covers medical care, especially if you’re not a European citizen. Some credit cards offer this automatically, if you have that card hooked up to your Paypal account.
Q: What prerequisite kitchen skills do I need?
A: Zero. This is regional cooking. We all start at zero when learning a new cuisine but our school emphasis the ‘why’, as most of the time in Italy the ‘how’, is surprising straight forward. While you’ll certainly pick up some skills, tips and tricks that will make you more competent in cooking any and all cuisines when home, our classes are far more anthropological/sociological, but held in the kitchen and dinning room.
Q: I don’t drink. Is that a problem?
A: No. We only pour the first glass and then the bottles are on the table. If you want less, simply don’t refill your glass or glasses. For those that don’t drink at all, you can just simply turn your goblets upside down and we’ll remove them without comment.
Q: Where do I sleep for the week?
A: We have suggestions. Once you book we’ll give you access to Student Services which has all the arrival/departure/accommodation information. We give this out only after booking to make sure we actually have space for you before you book anything further.
Q: Can my non-participating spouse attend meals and outings?
A: Of course. They can pay half-price and we’ll give them a set of keys that they can come and go as they please. While they are welcome to come with us on field trips, they aren’t counted as students in the kitchen.
To Logistics at a Glance for Our Bici/Cucina/Vino Course
