Two Tuscan Inns with Award Winning Wines

Either of these Insider’s Italy inns would be top favorites even if their vineyards did not produce wines that win top international and Italian wine awards.  We have worked with both inns since their inception, and been sending our guests to each of them for two decades.  A honeymoon trip where guests stayed at one inn  was followed ten years later by a family trip with the couple’s three children.   Other clients have come back — to one inn or the other — as many as four times.

The inns are both sited near Greve, an Italian Slow City with a charming arcaded square, good osterie, and a lively Saturday market. They are in Chianti Classico, which for many of our clients is the quintessential Tuscan landscape, a timeless one of exceptional beauty. Vineyards, olives, cypresses and villas compose pictures that could be Roman or Renaissance. The sense of continuity here, and the deep-rooted equilibrium between man and bounteous nature, is particularly striking in Chianti.

Florence and Siena are each half an hour away.  San Gimignano is about 45 minutes to the west.  Umbria is easily accessible on a day trip.

The first inn is family owned and managed.  Ilaria run this 11 room villa-hotel while her brother, with a winemaker, is responsible for the wines.

Tastings are of course possible.  We love the estate’s “Rosi”, a sangiovese and cabernet blend, and it has become our house wine !   The estate has recently received very high praise in the Wine Spectator. The estate oil is also very special.

Accommodations are tasteful, with a charming quiet elegance, and maintain many of the farmhouse’s original architectural features, including handsome terra-cotta tiled floors and beamed ceilings.

The inn feels like a private villa — and on more than one occasion, clients have taken it over as a perfect week’s retreat (superb for wedding, birthday and anniversary parties !)

The pool faces the herb garden.  And there is a dedicated staff member, Cristina, available 8 – 8 daily,  who will answer any questions and provide wonderful assistance and attention — she becomes a personal friend to many clients !   We have received praise after praise after praise about this special villa inn.  Doubles are 240 Euro and suites 260 Euro per night, both with a delicious breakfast, taxes and service.

I had always planned to be married at our second inn (plans changed and instead I wed in Washington DC !), in the rose garden, with cypresses standing sentry and the strawberry pink villa as my backdrop.

My connection with this inn goes back as far as my friendship with the owner, a lawyer-winemaker, who acquired the 500 acre estate in 1989.  Here too you will receive warm and personal attention.

This agriturismo inn is housed in and around a Renaissance villa. Accommodations are extremely spacious and full of character, and there is a choice of one of the two grand, historic rooms in the main villa or charming country accommodation with kitchenette.  Suites range from 200 to 450 Euro per night, as ever with breakfast, taxes, service.

There are two delightful swimming pools — two — circled by lavender and rosemary. Wonderful breakfasts and dinners and pool-side lunches, the latter two made all the better when accompanied by the wines of the estate.  Excellent walks from the door.   A very special place.

If we may include either of these accommodations in your next itineraries, just let us know.   We book with owners and managers directly, as we do with nearly all of our hotels, and always chose your room by number.