Around 1pm on a hot – a very bloody hot – July Monday afternoon, in the Chianti village of Panzano an hour south of Florence, the unmistakeable drone of Metallica begins at peak volume, smothering the gathered masses in a somewhat incongruous aural blanket.

We are in a butcher’s shop – a macelleria – though not one most of us would recognise. For a start, there are about 50 of us “customers”, filling the merch-strewn shop and spilling out onto the street while sipping cheap chianti and nibbling whipped Tuscan-accented lardo (cured pork fat aka burro del Chianti) on crostini.