Along churches and palaces, you will find some of the world’s most famous red wines in Siena…
A territory of vineyards and world-famous great labels, Siena is a province that has wine production of the highest quality in its DNA. A history written by those who over the centuries have ‘refined’ the knowledge and techniques with vision, innovation and promoting the territory.
Not by chance, the province of Siena bosts five DOCGs (Denomination of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin) and numerous DOCs (Denomination of Controlled Origin). Practically no strip of land is not ‘certified’ starting from Chianti Classico, passing through San Gimignano, to Montalcino and Montepulciano.
Historic towns that owe part of their international fame to their prestigious products.
Brunello, Nobile and Chianti Classico are three excellent wines that few other territories can match, to which we must add the exciting and authentically Sienese productions of Chianti Colli Senesi and Orciae il Grance Senesi. Let’s not forget the great reds, from Rosso di Montalcino and Montepulciano, vinsanto and the wine productions of Valdarbia and Valdichiana.
Siena is Tuscany’s leading province in terms of wine production (more than 1 million hectoliters), of which about 90% is red. The Sienese vineyards cover an area of about 22 thousand hectares, equal to 33% of Tuscany’s vineyard area. Wine is tourism, history and culture in Siena.
It’s not surprising that the cultivation of vines in Tuscany has been practised for more than two millennia, as far back as Etruscan times. For at least eight hundred years it has been an integral part of the Sienese landscape. On top of particularly favourable soils and geo-climatic conditions, we must thank the men, who in a metaphorical never-ending chain of experience and knowledge have handed down the production of one of the most characteristic Made in Italy products today: wine.
Chianti, Brunello, Nobile, Colli Senesi have been known and appreciated all over the world for centuries. In the last hundred and fifty years they have reached every corner of the earth.
Already Dante in the Divine Comedy wrote about how good and appreciated Vernaccia di San Gimignano (a white wine) was, just as Giovanni Boccaccio in his Decameron included wine among the remedies that the bandit Ghino di Tacco uses to cure the abbot of Cluny, his prisoner sick with gastritis. In the 15th century, the humanist poet Angelo Poliziano sang the praises of the Nobile, one of the favourite wines of the French Enlightenment writer Voltaire.
Meanwhile, the Sienese Cecco Angiolieri was certainly a great drinker of Chianti wine as he paired the dice and women with the tavern or one of the nineteen vintners present at that time in the city of Siena.
We highly recommend you take a stop in one of these taverns, which are now called wineries. Here you will discover an ancient tradition of excellent wine, perhaps accompanied by a board of the area’s excellent ‘norcine’ sausages and the singing of the patrons in the early evening. An authentically Sienese sip of red.
