For decades Ashton Durrett has been selecting top wines for the cellars of his Italian Underground restaurant in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He's returning for the fourth consecutive year and inviting you to join him as he indulges his passion for discovering fine Tuscan wines and the best of Tuscan dining. This year Ashton will focus on the overlooked DOC's around Lucca including Colline Lucchese and Montecarlo where wine unabashedly follows the style of its French origins. You'll also spend three days in Chianti savoring top Chianti, Chianti Classico and Super Tuscans including impressive wines created using the "super-green" biodynamic process.

You'll have special invitations from the winemakers to tour their cellars, taste their wines and dine at their tables. You'll be a guest at estates that have been handed down from generation to generation over the centuries. And, together with Ashton, you'll search out new "finds" for his cellar . . . and yours.

And let's not forget the "dining" portion of Ashton's tour. You'll visit some of our favorite ristorantes, trattorias and osterias across Tuscany and enjoy wines selected by Ashton and the restraurateurs exclusively for your meals. It's Tuscan fare at its best be it a simple antipasto or elegantly hand crafted pasta.

At your home for the week, the farmhouse Selva, you can enjoy walks in the olive groves and vineyards. You’ll have cooking lessons based on the bounty of the countryside and the best in the markets, with menus ranging from the cucina povera (cooking of the poor) to the elegant recipes of the villas. You’ll meet the estate shepherdess and, early one morning, you’ll watch her make exquisite ricotta and pecorino cheese.

The jewel city of Lucca is only minutes away, and you can immerse yourself in its Medieval center, walk or bike its Renaissance walls, savor the best cappuccino in the world, and dine in the shadow of the Roman amphitheater. In caves under the city of Lucca, our friend and master sommelier Paolo will lead you through an in-depth tasting of Tuscan wines specially selected by Paolo and Ashton.

Other highlights include learning to make limoncello, pizza night using the farmhouse wood-burning oven, a Puccini concert in a medieval church and visits to cheese and produce markets and salami and prosciutto makers.