We are delighted to partner again with Elizabeth Schneider, Wine for Normal People Podcast host, best-selling author, and wine authority without the attitude. 

We’ve been fans of Elizabeth's podcast for years. Knowing our shared passion for wine - and Italy - we talked, met, and plotted to design the ultimate wine tour of Piedmont. It's was an undeniable success. 

We then looked at other regions and Tuscany was an easy choice. 

The inaugural Piedmont tour sold out almost immediately and we are back in 2023 to welcome you in Tuscany (May) and in Piedmont (October). 

You can pay by credit card, bank transfer, and bank check. 

Payments are as follows:

• At booking 10%
• Balance due 90 days prior to departure 

This Tuscany wine lover's itinerary is filled with natural simplicity and authentic beauty. 

Tuscany is probably the most picturesque wine region in Italy presenting different types of landscape, topography, and terroir. We’ll appreciate these differences and how they transfer into winemaking. 

The king of Tuscan grape varieties is undoubtedly Sangiovese: with more than 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres), it occupies more than 10% of Italian vineyards. It is the main grape variety for Chianti and also for Brunello di Montalcino, one of the most prestigious wines in the world. For the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano a Sangiovese clone is used: in this case, the grape Prugnollo Gentile. Since the advent of the Super Tuscans, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc have had a presence in the region. 

So, while Sangiovese plays the biggest role, Tuscan reds aren’t “boring” at all and it is easy to fall in love with them forever, especially after admiring the vineyards in person, smelling the soil and listening to the producers explaining their vision. 

Our tour starts in the city of Siena, a Unesco World Heritage site, best known for Palio, the hardest horse race in the world, held twice a year. It’s a charming and perfectly preserved medieval town offering characteristic narrow streets. The Piazza del Campo, as the heart of the city, is one of the largest medieval squares in the world and has an unmistakable shell shape. In this place, you will find the Torre del Mangia from where you have a breathtaking view over the town. From Siena (three-night stay) we’ll explore the Chianti Classico wine area (province of Siena) and a Nobile di Montepulciano producer. We'll then move to Val d'Orcia and to the Brunello area.

Val d’Orcia is the image of Tuscany itself: the landscape, with smooth hills, cypress trees that line its winding roads, lovely farmhouses and hilltop hamlets all correspond, in the minds of many people, to quintessential Tuscany. Even if you haven’t heard of Val d’Orcia before, you’ve certainly seen it featured in travel magazines that highlight Tuscany. In this valley, which stretches from the hills of Siena to Monte Amiata, the famous village of Montalcino surrounded by vineyards sits at 1,860 ft high, being the highest point of our tour. Hint: Elizabeth loves Montalcino and she can tell you her favorite lookout points!

Maremma (a natural protected area) and Bolgheri are newer wine areas. Free from traditional dogma, constraints, and rules, yet gifted with perfect conditions near the Tyrrhenian Sea, they deliver some of the most interesting wines you can find anywhere. One could argue that we have saved the best for last. That’s up to you to decide. It is however interesting to understand how Super Tuscans came about. Anyone who knows Italian bureaucracy, especially in viticulture and winemaking, will know that changing rules in Italy is not an easy task. However, in the 1970's several winemakers in Tuscany vineyards started a revolution in winemaking. The first step was the release of the wine Sassicaia by Mario Incisa Della Rocchetta and later followed by Antinori with Tignanello, Solaia, Ornellaia, etc. Nowadays, unpretentious Bolgheri sees the biggest cluster of producers blending Sangiovese and international grapes. 

In Tuscany, small and large producers coexist in a way that is often hard to grasp. Our tastings and visits are meant to showcase a curated list of winemakers including “aristocratic” ones and some producing less than 10,000 bottles annually with just one of two people involved (full-time) that equally deliver excellence. 

• UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Siena and Val d'Orcia

• Villages of Montepulciano, Sorano, Montalcino and  San Gimignano

• Bolgheri, home of the "Super Tuscans"

• Stunning rolling hills covered with vineyards and picture-perfect medieval villages

• Maremma wine production area

• Castle-topped villages and walled towns for a jump back in time

• Some of the best regional food in Italy

• Montalcino and Brunello

• Visits to the most iconic producers and to our personal favorites

•.Learn about the history and evolution of Chianti Classico at its birth place

• Meetings with producers and local experts who are behind the

local wine scene

• A professional tour guide throughout the program

• All accommodation

• All breakfasts, four lunches and three dinners

• Eleven wine tastings

• All transfers, ticket entrances, and gratuities

• Group shuttle from Florence at the beginning of the tour and group shuttle back to Florence at the end

• Assistance with door-to-door wine shipping

• All of the wine at group lunches and dinners

• Walking tour of Siena with local guide

We also include the finest Tuscan wines of the best vintages and specially selected by Elizabeth.

Athena ****

Hotel Athena is the place where a welcome, a smile, and hospitality are the order of the day. It's located just inside the Porta San Marco, in the beating heart of Siena, close to all the main attractions of the historic center and it offers a magnificent panoramic view over the hills of the surrounding countryside. Rooms are furnished by local artisans and are painted with colors that echo the tones of the Tuscan landscape.

Fortezza di Sorano ***

The Hotel della Fortezza is located within the ancient walls of the Orsini Fortress of Sorano, which dates back to the 12th Century. It's a fascinating hotel within this impressive example of medieval architecture, where historical figures once resided.

The rooms, all different, have unique design and furnishings immersed in the history and beauty of the Tufo cities of the Tuscan Maremma.

Il Casale Bolgherese Wine Resort

Casale Bolgherese is a wine resort located in the middle of the Bolgheri DOC  vineyards. It's a place away from pollution and stress, where you can find tranquility, relaxation, and a family environment.
Only 12 Suites, furnished in Tuscan style, that offer comfort and warmth in the middle of the countryside, a few miles away from the picturesque village of Bolgheri.

It's often notes that Tuscan cooking has its roots in "cucina povera" - peasant cooking. In truth,  that can be said of most Italian cuisines. It's true, though, that Tuscan cooking is a simple one. There are no reductions, no fancy sauces, no elaborate creations, no heavy complicated seasoning. Throughout Tuscany, olive groves and wild herbs are everywhere. Many of the best olive oils produced in Tuscany are reserved for use as a condiment at the table rather than as an ingredient in cooking in the kitchen. Hearty soups with seasonal vegetables and legumes are often offered as a starter or as a main dish.

Other staple dishes are game (wild boar), mushrooms and truffles (when in season), pecorino (sheep milk), and cured meats. And of course, lots of pasta dressed with meat proteins as well as veggies.

The tour starts with a pickup at the Grand Hotel Baglioni in Florence (time TBD) on May 1.

We will have approximately an hour bus ride to San Gimignano, a small fortified town famous for its architecture and its beautiful medieval towers that make the city profile truly unique. 

In the most prosperous period, the noble families and upper middle-class merchants of San Gimignano built 72 towers houses as a symbol of their wellbeing and power. While only 14 of the original tower houses have survived, San Gimignano has retained its feudal atmosphere and appearance, embellished with several notable palaces during the 12th and 14th century. The town also has several masterpieces of Italian art dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries. 

Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1990, San Gimignano also offers excellent local products such as saffron and white wine called Vernaccia di San Gimignano, a great white wine in a land known mainly for its reds.

720 hectares (under 1800 acres) are destined for the production of Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOCG and only 70 producers bottle and sell their wine under their own brand. 

In 1966 Vernaccia became the first Italian wine to get the DOC certification and since then the fame of this wine has grown internationally. It is one of the most charismatic and distinctive Italian whites.

It is recognized for its golden-hued color, powerful and full-bodied nature, heady floral bouquet, dry, crisp and persistent flavors, high levels of acidity and a characteristic bitter aftertaste. It also reflects its terroir, offering mineral characteristics of stone (particularly flint) from the sandstone soils where the grapes are grown.

DOCG rules stipulate that this white must be made predominantly from Vernaccia grapes, although wineries are permitted to include up to 15% of other non-aromatic white grapes permitted in Tuscany (but grown in the San Gimignano area).

In the afternoon, you will settle in the medieval walled city of Siena, a UNESCO World Heritage Site built on three ridges and dominating the land between the Arbia and Elsa valleys. 

Walking around Siena will be like stepping back in time to discover the palazzos, piazzas and churches scattered throughout its old town. Siena's streets are paved with cobblestones, and the city is built over five hills, making for a challenging, yet rewarding, stroll. You will be able to learn about Siena's unique districting system: Siena's 17 districts, or contrade, were originally divided by the city's buildings and their owners at the time, rather than by roads or other geographical markers. Each is named after an animal or symbol.

Tonight we are going to have a welcome drink and briefing followed by dinner in a local restaurant with wines chosen by Elizabeth.

We will continue our journey through the scenic beauty of Val d’Orcia and we’ll drive to Montepulciano, one of the most ancient hill towns and famous for the Vino Nobile, a great red Sangiovese wine, locally produced, and the first Italian red to obtain the DOCG quality seal. Thanks to its superb vineyards, the Montepulciano area is considered one of the finest winemaking regions in the world.

Vino Nobile is made primarily from the Sangiovese grape varietal (minimum 70%), blended with Canaiolo Nero (10%–20%), and small amounts of other local varieties such as Mammolo. 

Today, we are going to discover Azienda Agricola Poliziano,  a reality which tells about over sixty years of dedication and Palazzo Vecchio Winery, located in a unique area, immersed in the Valdichiana, between Lake Trasimeno and the Sienese hills, an ideal land for viticulture. Palazzo Vecchio was born in 1990 as a family business, and it continues to grow and become more modern and eco-sustainable.

Today’s bus ride will take us to the Chianti Classico production area. We will be driving on the Via Chiantigiana, a panoramic road that runs north-to-south across dense vineyards, cypress forests and through hilltop villages like Greve in Chianti, Radda and Castellina. Wine has been produced in this area for over 2000 years, since Etruscan times.  

Situated between the provinces of Florence and Siena, Chianti has long been revered as the heart and soul of old Tuscany, known, of course, for its world-class wine production, a masterful tradition dating back to the thirteenth century. In addition to its distinguished viticulture, Chianti is rich in gastronomic heritage, home to some of the most iconic and universally loved specialties: from expertly cured meats to sharp, melt-in-your-mouth cheeses and hearty, wholesome breads, the people of Chianti pride themselves in carrying on ancient culinary practices that work in tandem with the natural environment to achieve unmatched quality and sustainability. 

This small wine region produces perhaps one of the best-known and appreciated wines: Chianti Classico. The Chianti Classico seal, recently changed in 2013, is a black rooster (Gallo Nero in Italian) on a white background with a bordeaux colored frame.

Legend has it that in 13th century Florence and Siena decided to use a horse race to end their land dispute over Chianti. The meeting point of two knights, who would leave respectively from Florence and Siena when the rooster sang at dawn, would mark the new borders of their territories. The Florentines selected a black rooster and kept it for a few days in a box with no food. On the day of the race, when they took the rooster out of the box, he sang much earlier than dawn. Thus the Florentine knight left before the Sienese rider, meeting him only 20 km from Siena walls. Since then the black rooster has been the symbol of Chianti: first of the Chianti League in 13th century and then of the Chianti Classico Consortium.

We’ll have the opportunity to explore and enjoy a wine tasting at the Castello di Brolio on the Barone Ricasoli estate, one of the largest, and the first, of all Chianti Classico producers. 

We change areas and move a little bit south to the Brunello di Montalcino wine production area.

Montalcino is a classic fairytale hilltop town, set within a full circle of fortified walls and watched over by a mighty castle of medieval perfection, a beautiful village immersed in the breathtaking Val d'Orcia Natural Park.

Brunello di Montalcino is a visibly limpid, brilliant wine, with a bright garnet color. It has an intense perfume, persistent, ample and ethereal. One can recognize scents of undergrowth, aromatic wood, berries, light vanilla and jam. The wine has an elegant harmonious body, vigorous and racy. It is dry with a lengthy aromatic persistence.

DOCG regulations require Brunello vineyards to be planted on hills with good sun exposure, at altitudes not surpassing 1968 feet above sea level. This limit is intended to ensure the grapes reach optimal ripeness and flavor before being harvested. Any higher than that and the mesoclimate becomes cool to the point of unreliability.

According to the disciplinare di produzione (the legal document laying out the wine's production laws) for Brunello di Montalcino, Brunello must be made from 100 percent Sangiovese and aged for at least four years (five for riserva wines). 

In the afternoon, we’ll move a little bit south to the village of Sorano, an ancient city that flourished in the Etruscan era. Given its position perched on a cliff and dug into the rock (like the nearby Pitigliano), Sorano is also known as the “Matera of Tuscany” with its rocky villages and charming pathways through the quarries, frequented since the Etruscan period.

Though not totally unique in Italy, this town is definitely one of a kind when you talk about Tuscany! Using nature’s bounty, the town of Sorano is literally carved out rock, creating an intriguing combination of towers, vias and viales, alcoves and cantinas to explore that will give you a new perspective of life in the small towns in Tuscany.

This morning, we’ll board our bus and  we’ll go farther south to Maremma.

On our way, we will pass near by the hilltop town of Pitigliano. Surrounded by gorges on three sides, Pitigliano was originally settled by the Etruscans and was once home to a thriving Jewish population that had settled there in the early part of the 16th century. It was even known as La Piccola Gerusalemme (or Little Jerusalem). 

The majority of Maremma was formerly marshland. A first attempt to drain it was carried out as early as the 1700’s by the Medici family, but it was mostly reclaimed much later as part of the “Battle for Land” under the Fascists (1922-1943). The fear of malaria prevented overbuilding of settlements. It was traditionally populated by the butteri (Italian cowboys), mounted cattle herders who rode horses (maremma breed) fitted with one of two distinctive styles of saddle, the scafarda and the bardella. Also, dog lovers might know about the fuzzy Maremma sheepdog (pastore maremmano). Away from the lagoon, villages are like their own little world, immersed in a unique and rich history - mostly Medieval - and culture, where everyone knows everyone and peace, quiet and good homemade food and wine are king.

Maremma is no longer the wild, unkempt and uninhabited land it once was. Instead, the landscape is characterized by lusciously grassy green hills lined with rows of vineyards and olive trees, making it the ideal destination to connect with nature while walking along paths full of Mediterranean scrub, broom, cistus and strawberry trees.

We are going to pass nearby Scansano, a town in the hilly inland of Maremma located halfway between the coast and the slopes of Monte Amiata in a landscape offering some vast and astonishing panoramas. Scansano has been inhabited since antiquity, first by the Etruscans (that’s the same period during which the cultivation of vines started, demonstrated by the findings of agricultural tools for pruning and harvesting grapes) and then by the Romans.

In the medieval period, interesting quotes from scholars and researchers tell of the excellence of the pedo-climatic conditions that the Scansanese area offers for the precious cultivation of the vine.

We are right now in the area of the famous Italian red wine, Morellino di Scansano. The territory is mainly hilly in the central part of the denomination, with vineyards between 98 and 1838 feet above sea level, and dotted with sulfur-rich sources of water. Soils are shallow but rich in substances useful for the vine. The climate is mild, typically Mediterranean, with a constant wind all year round and a dry period concentrated in the summer.

Morellino di Scansano DOCG has an intense ruby red color which, with aging, is enriched with garnet or orange nuances. The aroma is intense and vinous, it recalls cherry and wild berries and, in the Riserva version, spicy and woody notes. The taste is dry, tannic, persistent, quite fresh.

It goes well with meat courses and is best with the typical dishes of the Maremma tradition, such as pappardelle with wild boar sauce,“pici” pasta with sauce, stewed boar and lamb “scottiglia.” It’s also good with aged cheeses.

Today, you are going to immerse yourselves in Bolgheri, a charming medieval village with a red brick castle that has been owned by the noble Gherardesca family since the 1200s. Beyond its ancient town walls is an angle of Tuscany that feels like a step back in time, a small oasis of Tuscan allure and aristocratic appeal. The Bolgheri region is a wine zone in the Maremma that runs parallel to the Tuscan coast in the province of Livorno, named after the town of Bolgheri. 

This wine region is different than others, because it is surprisingly new for such an old country. Maremma used to be swampland and was only completely drained in the 1930s. What a surprise it was that the fertile, alluvial soils would be so conducive to grapevine cultivation. In addition, unlike many other prestigious vineyard territories throughout Italy (like hilly Barolo and Barbaresco in Piedmont, the terraces of Valdobbiadene in Veneto, or the zones of Chianti Classico and Montalcino in Tuscany), Bolgheri is comparatively flat and low in altitude. Its new vineyards make this zone incredibly interesting for the future, because vineyards tend to improve with age. This area, which already makes fantastic wines seems like it will only get better.

Bolgheri wines are famous for expressing terroir. These wines reflect the land they come from: the sea is one of the place’s defining characteristics, the land basks in ample light from the sun and its brilliant reflections off the ocean, enjoys fabulous coastal weather, and is kissed by a sea breeze that ventilates the vines and mitigates the temperatures. 

Vineyards are wedged in between wooded hillsides and ancient olive groves, and soils are alluvial and rich in minerals, sand, limestone, clay, pebbles, and volcanic rock in the east. This sunshine and maritime influence can be found in the intense, red wines.

After breakfast, we will take you back to Florence, either to the airport or central train station depending on your travel plans.