Cortona is also famous all over the world for its wine tradition. The historical researches say that the winery production of Cortona dates back to the Etruscan period, in which, thanks to the weather conditions of the area, the Etruscans planted the vineyards using a particular technique, that is based on the concept of mixing this type of cultivation with other arboreal plants. There are many scenes of banquets with some figures, on some Etruscan amphorae and vases, portrayed the moment when they drink wine. There are some written traces of the famous Roman author Plinio il Giovane, who precisely talks about the excellent wines of Etruria, praising particularly a wine called Estesiaca produced in the area of Cortona.  The DOC wine of Cortona has got mainly 3 types of wines: red, white and Vin Santo. The suitable grapes of the winery production of Cortona DOC are the ones traditionally cultivated in the production area. Among the red one are noteworthy: Sangiovese, Merlot and Syrah; among the white one: Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Grechetto wine and Tuscan Trebbiano. Among these wines the most famous is the Syrah. The first testimonies of the Syrah production date back to the 1960s, when some private companies, finding some traces inside their vineyards, decided first to develops some surveys around its genomic origin, then to cultivate it.
If you come to Cortona you have to try a good glass of wine in one of the various wine bars you can find inside the city. 

Cortona, as all Tuscany and Italy, has got an important gastronomic tradition. The culinary heritage of Cortona is influenced by all the rural traditions of the Valdichiana. Nowadays on the table of the Cortona’s locals, and also in restaurants inside the town, we could find typical recipes that come from the past. A typical Cortona meal could start with the tasty bruschette, some toasted slices of bread that are topped with extra virgin olive oil produced by the local farms, with the supplement of black cabbage, if it is autumn or winter. This vegetable is widely used in the Tuscan tradition, in fact it is the basis of lots of recipes in Tuscany. One of the typical Tuscan sauces for the croutons is the so-called crostino nero, “black” one, that is traditional of this area and the area nearby. Among the first courses there are the soups, particularly the ones made with fresh vegetables, even if the pici are the kings of tables in Cortona. It is a kind of handmade pasta a little bit thicker than spaghetti, made with water and flour, throw a process called appicciatura. The pici are well matched with sauces meat based or nana based (nana is the dialect word for female duck). Other sauces are bread crumbs based or made with tomatoes and aglione della Valdichiana IGP (a typical big garlic that grows only in Valdichiana and that is PGI). Other culinary specialities from Cortona are influenced by the ancient habit of hunting through the woods of Valdichiana. For this reason, lots of second courses are hunting meat based, as wild boar or roe deer. But also, other meats are used to make the sauce for pasta, as the meats of farm animals like rabbits, chicken and ocio (male duck), that once were originally cooked at the end of summer, when farmers used to do the threshing of the wheat, and the duck were offered to the farmers at the end of the work as a thankfulness for their job. The ocio is usually cooked roast in the oven, but it is also used to make the sauce of the pasta, and this type of pasta is really delicious! If you find this on the menu of the restaurants in Cortona, you should try it!
Among desserts there are some of them you can’t miss to taste, as castagnaccio, a cake made with chestnut flour, the rice fritters and the ciaramiglia, a typical cake made during the Easter period.  You could try all this delicious food in the restaurant of the city centre, where you could eat the typical food of Tuscany and Italy.