Curtis Lincoln’s culinary mantra is "seasonal .. seasonal .. seasonal," a philosophy well-suited to Tuscany where menu planning often happens at the market instead of before it.

Curtis, executive chef at Denver’s famous Brown Palace Hotel and Spa, invites you to join him in going to the source of Tuscany’s gastronomic excellence, to the seaside to choose fish for that evening’s cooking course, to the estate’s shepherdess to watch her work the magic of pecorino cheese and ricotta, to a Chianti macelleria (butcher) who supplies beef and wild boar to the area’s best restaurants, and many more producers and vendors of regional food products.

In addition, Curtis will introduce you to some of the wines he has chosen to serve at the Brown. You’ll have special invitations from winemakers to tour their cellars, taste their wines and talk to them about their plans for this year’s harvest.

A winner of many culinary awards, including from Wine Spectator, Curtis is a classically trained graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. He has cooked in critically acclaimed restaurants such as Sign of the Dove, River Café and The Water Club, as well as The Straight Wharf on Nantucket and the exclusive Game Creek Club in Vail, among many others.

Now Curtis brings his inspiring and popular teaching techniques to our Abbondanza Toscana School of Cookery as guest chef for a week, searching out the best and freshest ingredients for his hands-on cooking classes.

Highlights of your week with Curtis:

• You begin the week with a lesson on wine-tasting, using the local Colline Lucchese and Montecarlo DOC wines, followed by a tour of the herb garden, and a cooking lesson from Curtis using the farmhouse fresh ingredients.

• Our art historian will give you a guided tour of Lucca’s cultural, historic and artistic sites, with time for shopping as well. You begin the day with the "best cappuccino in the world," and after lunch you’ll visit an enoteca housed in cellars underneath the city center to taste some of Curtis' favorite wines.

• During your day in Chianti, you will help Curtis choose the Chianina beef made famous by Steak Florentine, shop in the charming wine towns of Greve and Panzano, and taste wine from the wineries who provide Curtis with his top wines at the Brown Palace. For those participating in Curtis' September program, your visit coincides with the vendemmia in Tuscany. You’ll experience the activity and excitement of harvest as winemakers bring in their grapes and begin to crush them for the initial fermentation.

• In the early morning you’ll go to the seaside to choose among the day’s catch the perfect fish for your dinner that night. Another early morning you visit the shepherdess to watch her work the magic of pecorino cheese and ricotta, and you get to meet the sheep who produce these delicacies.

• Lucca is the home of Puccini, and you’ll thrill to arias performed in a medieval church situated over excavated Roman ruins.

• You’ll begin the week by starting the process of limoncello and end it with pizza night, using the farmhouse’s wood-fired oven, followed by the fun of tasting your own limoncello.