Castello di Fonterutoli - wine-tasting & fine dining
This impressive ancestral wine estate is a forty-minute, 32 km drive west of Castelnuovo. Castello di Fonterutoli is the first significant wine estate south of Castellina, a former Florentine outpost. This 21-hectare estate forms the ancestral heart of the Mazzei land-holdings, which the Mazzei marquesses have owned for 24 generations, ever since 1435. Even though the estate is 6 km south of Castellina, the views extend to Siena. From this timeless stone-built hamlet you can make out Siena’s Torre del Mangia and the outline of Siena Cathedral. These Fonterutoli estates are largely planted with Sangiovese, with a far smaller proportion of Merlot, Malvasia Nera, and Colorino. Fonterutoli’s award-winning Chianti Classico wines are matched by their grappa, olive oil and Tuscan cuisine. If tasting the wine barons’ vintages is not enough, then buy the estate lavender and natural Tuscan beauty products, created by Carla Mazzei, scion of the estate’s great wine dynasty. Stay for lunch or dinner at L’Osteria di Fonterutoli, the estate’s acclaimed restaurant.
The estate is also a pretext to delve into local history as Fonterutoli was, for both the Florentines and the Sienese, a significant battleground. In the early 13th century the warring Republics of Florence and Siena fought over Chianti territory, sandwiched as it was between the two great rivals. To determine fixed borders and end this dispute forever, it was determined that two knights would depart from their respective cities and fix the boundary point at wherever they met. Dawn was the agreed departure, with the signal to ride announced by the rooster’s crowing. The Florentines cheated and won.
Their symbolic black rooster was kept in a dark coop and practically starved so crowed as soon as it was released. The Florentine knight set off immediately and, with this huge head start, met the Sienese knight at Fonterutoli, just 12 km from the gates of Siena. The Sienese white rooster faithfully followed instructions but was vanquished by Florentine trickery. As a result, most of the Chianti was brought under Florentine control, far earlier than the defeat of Siena itself in 1555. A triumphant Florence brought its border to Fonterutoli along a new border marked by Castellina, Radda and Gaiole, and established the Chianti Military League, with the Black Rooster as its shield. History has given the Sienese the last laugh: Castellina, Radda and Gaiole are now Sienese territory once more.
L’Enoteca, Castello di Fonterutoli (wine tastings and tours):
0577 741385
Address: L’Osteria di Fonterutoli
Via Puccini 4,
Localita Fonterutoli,
53011
Castellina in Chianti
Tel: 0577 741125
Web: www.mazzei.it
