Tuscany wine tasting recos

Driving from Rome to Torrita di Siena at the end of June. We were looking to stop at a few wineries on the way. Any recommendations? Thanks!

Felsina has a great tour. You can taste or opt for the lunch with tasting-which is fantastic

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Orvieto might not be the most exciting hotspot for wines that excite us, but absolutely is well located to break that journey up, so worth considering.

Montepulciano is also on the route, though also close enough to Torrita di Siena to make it an easy day trip. It’s certainly got lots of appeal, plus if you get to the point you’re fed up of ‘yet another tour of the wines in barrels’, then it a) has the humongous ‘botti’ that were used historically and b) it has plenty of drop in tasting rooms (unusual for Italy), so you can simply taste and move on without pre-booking.

edit - by chance some Orvieto trip reports have added to the SlowEurope travel site (a very good and cosy travel forum). Here’s one of them, but there were two others added today as well. Well worth a look if contemplating Orvieto as a stop-off

Thanks Ian!

We stopped at the Well of St. Patrick in Orvieto on a similar journey but honestly Orvieto was our least favorite stop. For wine, the southern end of Tuscany has Montalcino and Montepulciano–but both are considerable trecks off of the main route. My favorite city in southern Tuscany is Sorano. The Vie Cave Etrusche was mind-boggling and beautiful. Cascate del Mulino di Saturnia wasn’t as busy as I expected and was well worth the stop. If you are going for wine, I’d make the detour to Montalcino and hit up Casanova di Neri and Pertimali.

Yes that’s rather the challenge, that for the fancy wines us lot tend to like, Montepulciano, Montalcino and the Chianti region are the places we’d typically seek out, yet each is a major detour / best done day-tripping from the destination.

Do you have any further insight into Orvieto Josh, about what you didn’t like? Was it the wines, the landscape, the overall vibe?

Thanks Josh - that is helpful. I think we are focusing on Montalcino one day, and Montepulciano another day as our villa is in Montepulciano. I will look into your recommendations. Any not miss places in Montepulciano?

Hi Nicole
Not to miss is a personal thing, but some random thoughts…

  • Ristorante la Grotta could easily be a tourist trap, opposite a historic tourist attraction (San Biagio), but instead we found it impressive, yet with a professional (yet light touch) service. Very much recommended and the walk down there will gently build your appetite, whilst the walk back up will burn some of it off.

  • Although most places have drop-in tasting rooms, making an appointment at the winery can give a fuller experience, rather than the somewhat superficial tasting room experience. Even booking at a tasting room can make a difference, as we did at Crociani, as although the ladies were industriously packing up a large order, they warmly welcomed us, gave us a good tasting and even threw in a couple of nice gifts. Very much Italian hospitality. I definitely recommend the wines of Crociani as well.

  • If dessert wines appeal, and you’ve got some interest in how vin santo is made, see if you can get booked in at Avignonesi. There’s is truly exceptional IMO, and with a price that matches that, yet (again IMO) it is in no way overpriced.

  • Conversely we were somewhat disappointed with the other big name (Poliziano) which felt slick and polished (as did the wines), but rather too much so, and especially in the rather hard sell put on us to buy wines, which I’ve never experienced anywhere else in Italy, indeed it’s typically us asking if we can buy, rather than them asking us.

  • Across the back of Poliziano however, was a lovely little gem (Daviddi) whose wines never seem to land on critic’s radar, and yet looking at their website had me thinking they were worth a visit. Very hospitable indeed, this is very much a family winery and I found them very impressive for the price, not least the back vintage they had available that was wonderful and stupidly cheap. Having encountered their wines later in Torino, I get the impression that late release is very much a planned thing.

  • Caffè Poliziano (no modern link to the winery IIRC) is the historic cafe in Montepulciano and FWIW we found it a somewhat mixed bag. In places the decor felt tired, and what we saw of their breakfasts didn’t impress for the price charged. However their selection of little cakes/biscuits ‘mignon’ was very good indeed, so assuming that’s still going, I’d suggest visiting for a mid-afternoon (or mid-morning) pick-me-up

  • As you’ve got a villa, I presume that mean self-catering? If so, there is a decent sized ‘CONAD’ supermarket near the bus station at the flatter end of the town, plus a small number of specialists/alimentari at that end of town as well. Not a massive selection. This place wasn’t there when we visited https://valdichianaeating.shop/bottega/ I can’t tell from the website whether it’s a really passionate outfit seeking the best locally, or a polished commercial operation relying on packaging and marketing. I’d be intrigued to see for myself.

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Ian,

Have you been to Tuscany during the pandemic? We’re just back from a trip to the Piemonte and Tuscany and things were quite different than on our last trip a few years back. Many places that used to have no appointment drop in tastings no longer do so. That may change as many of the green pass/mask requirements were dropped on May 1 but, at least for the first few days after that, the wineries we visited were not changing their protocols. Also appointments were tougher to get in some places, either because of the wineries limiting how many guests they welcome at a time or staffing issues (for example, Chiara Boschis showed us around herself because her secretary, who usually lead the tours, had Covid). Popular tourist destinations like the Uffizi are limiting entries with timed tickets.

That being said, Nicole, Ian has very good recommendations for Montepulciano, as he always does for Italy. We’ve enjoyed our visits to Avignonesi. I don’t know if they still do their tour/luncheon but in the Before Times that was a very nice way to spend an afternoon (caveat - it’s several hours so you basically have to give up the whole afternoon to it). We also were very disappointed with Poliziano. Don’t forget that Montepulciano is a great strolling town and you can easily lose yourself for a quite while there just walking around.

If you are going to Montalcino, let me throw in Conti Costanti, Uccelliera, Ciacci and Siro Pacenti as possibilities to consider. We also had a very nice visit at Altesino last week (that was just to break up the drive from Chianti to Rome - spent most of the time in Tuscany in the Chianti region).

Hi Jeff
No I haven’t - the furthest we’ve travelled since the pandemic is ~ 1 hour by car!! It’s a very good point, as Covid may not be life-threatening any more, but staff absence can be a significant cost / inconvenience that wineries wish to avoid or strongly protect against.

By chance, two of the forumites from Slow Europe are in Montepulciano as we speak, albeit both isolating due to having contracted Covid! Both had it relatively mild and both recovering fast. A local trattoria supplying takeouts, though they said it doesn’t feel or even taste the same. Such risks do need to be considered when travelling.

Yes I’d agree on the strolling and although San Biagio walk is somewhat steep, it’s not vastly long, whilst in the town itself the slopes are reasonably steady.

Regards
Ian

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You chose well with Montepulciano. It’s a great place and the views from the old city are truly incredible. We stayed there for a few days back in 2018 and really enjoyed it. One thing to call out - if you drive up to the old city beware of the ZTL, and ensure you park outside it if you are not on the vehicle list to enter. There are extremely narrow passageways and passthroughs you will find yourself in and they are difficult to navigate.

I second Ian’s rec for Restaurant La Grotta. We had a great experience there, they have a beautiful patio and a really nice wine list that is Tuscany centric, as would be expected. Food was great and well worth it, wine not inexpensive but was just fine. They had multiple vintages of Le Pergole Torte and some other big wines, as well as many for less. Some of us really enjoyed the walk down and back up (OK, maybe just me on the walk back up) - it’s pretty far and steep but we certainly survived.

Another rec I would make if you are in town for another meal is Osteria del Borgo. We had a few ideas for that night (and Borgo wasn’t one of them) but this was a hotel rec and it turned out to be perfect. Amazing view from the terrace, a great bistecca, and they had some of the nicer local wines by the glass under vacuum which worked well for us. I remember having Asinone from Poliziano, and it’s not always easy to find these by the glass. But even without that, view and food are very memorable.

We visited just one winery while we were there (family negotiation) and we chose Boscarelli. It turned out to be a great choice. It was not too far or hard to get to, the visit was intimate and very nice. The person who gave us the tour and through the tasting was one of the most knowledgeable non-winemakers I can remember tasting with. We had a great experience there and enjoyed the wines, as well. I would certainly recommend it. We also enjoyed the caves under Talosa, wines were fine, but caves were special and easy to walk through on our own. Its worth an appointment to see the caves, I think. Daviddi is an interesting recommendation, as well. We didn’t get a chance to visit, but I’ve enjoyed their Riserva in good vintages, though I have not had it for a while. I would visit if we had more time in the area.

One last recommendation if you get a chance to explore Val d’Orcia (recommended!!) - we stopped in San Quirico d’Orcia, walked through the town and had lunch at a spot that far exceeded our expectations - its called Ristorante di Ciacco. Food was some of the best we had on the entire trip - and that was for lunch. Dinner would likely be even more special.

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Thanks everyone - very helpful. Going to some of these places and will post when we return.