Everyone knows Chianti. Tourists more serious about their wine, however, are likely to push further south in Tuscany to the neighbouring hill towns of Montalcino and Montepulciano. You don't have to be focused on the wines, however, to enjoy this beautiful route for a day of top sightseeing. And like most of the places I've written about on this trip, these towns remain far less crowded than Florence or Siena, attracting visitors who are digging in to a more profound layer of Tuscan life.
We started our day at the fabulously ancient Abbazia di Sant'Antimo, a working abbey that centres its life around a church that's more than 1000 years old and produces a range of health and beauty products from its gardens. The setting near the bottom of a valley full of vines, olive trees and oaks is magnificent, with the cream-coloured abbey complex sitting in splendid isolation. Its outer walls are made of alabaster, a translucent stone much loved for the way light passes through it. On our visit the walls were bleached almost white under the intense sun and cloudless sky, but supposedly at night the exterior glows golden when lights are on inside.
The abbey traces its roots back to the 800s, supposedly founded by Charlemagne. What you see today has been more or less unchanged since the turn of the first millennium. There is a sense of immense peace in this simple Romanesque building, with its dim light filtered through small arched windows and its uncomplicated floor plan. The general lack of adornment makes the carved column capitals and door surrounds, writhing with greenery and capering figures, even more fantastic.
To one side of the main church, a grove of gnarled olive trees that look as old as the building offers a contemplative walk punctuated by plaques offering wisdom from the rule of St. Benedict. On the other side, you emerge into a rough cloister area ... any roof, colonnade or formal architecture is long gone ... to find a basic chapter house amongst ruins of other buildings that now form a picturesque backbone to gardens. The ground floor of the chapter house is the nuns' shop, the upstairs chapter room and the clerestory in the church require a paid tour to see.
Though the church appears to be at the bottom of the valley, there's actually a hidden depression behind a line of oaks just beyond the main door, into which the nuns have made a terraced garden dedicated to Saint Hildegard of Bingen. Composer, writer, medic and philosopher, Hildegard was one of the most significant women of the middle ages and here it's her exploration of the natural world that's celebrated. You'll find many more flourishing and impressive herb gardens in England, and the nuns certainly don't seem to have much time for weeding, but the hedges of blooming oleander and the backdrop of the village of Sant'Antimo on the hill above make this garden's setting hard to beat.
While it offers a pretty backdrop, there's not much to see up in the village, so head back to Montalcino from here.
Montalcino
Yet another stereotypical hill town, Montalcino spills down a hill from the brash Medici fortress at its summit. (Park in the public car park beneath it and climb the stairs from there up to the top of town.) The Piazza della Principessa Margherita is at the heart of town; a smaller-than-average open space in front of a narrow, venerable town hall. The piazza is surrounded by Medieval and Renaissance buildings and made more charming by the varying angles of the roads coming into it and the enormous loggia off to one side.
Alle Logge di Piazza, with its tables laid under the high arches, is obviously the place to eat in town, and
We chose the Bar Belvedere, which had a changing menu of daily chef's specials far more sophisticated than its appearance as a simple cafe. The pici was hand-rolled, obvious from the subtle differences in width, the boar sauce succulent and the salads fresh and generous. They also carried ales from the Abbazia Sant'Antimo, giving us a chance to sample some of the nuns' production at our leisure. If you want to do serious wine tasting, go a bit further down the street to the Enoteca di Piazza, where the wine room offers the same view and an opportunity to sample a wine range of Brunellos kept on tap in wine dispensing machines. It's the scene of another long, serious tasting afternoon on a former girls' trip.
Montalcino is a great place to shop for non-vinous products, too. There are enough tourists to support a good variety of shops, but not so many to allow unquestioned high prices. A leather store across from the Enoteca, for example, had an expanded range from what I'd seen in Florence with prices 10% to 20% cheaper, and discounts available if you paid in cash. A workbench in the front of the shop with a craftsman piecing together a handbag validated the "Made in Italy" stamp on the products jammed onto the floor-to-ceiling shelves. I finally succeeded in finding a new work bag that has the functionality of a backpack, the look of a good handbag and a rich burgundy colour that avoids the ubiquitously masculine browns and blacks of office gear. You could spend a whole day shopping here, but it's more fun to do a compare and contrast with Montepulciano in the same day.
The most beautiful road in Tuscany?
Someone has done a top PR job on the SP146 between San Quirico d'Orcia and Pienza. An impressive number of travel magazines and guidebooks will tell you that it's the most beautiful road in Tuscany. It's definitely pretty, and quintessentially Tuscan with the number of cypress-lined lanes running up hills to charming villas. One particular view towards a farmhouse with a white marble chapel (the cappella della madonna di vitaleta) beside it is world famous.
But, honestly, there are far more attractive drives. The road from Greve in Chianti to Sambuca is one, from Colle di Val d'Elsa to Volterra another that is prettier and more dramatic. The differences here are that the 146 is easy driving, wide with gentle banks rather than hairpin bends, and at under seven miles isn't very long. If you're a hesitant driver, or short on time, then this is certainly the most convenient choice for a beautiful drive.
There's everything here from fresh, young cheeses to the aged, hard stuff that's Tuscany's equivalent to parmesan. I, personally, find aged pecorino more distinctive and flavourful, but it's hard to find anything this good outside of Italy; even at Italian import shops. Stretching beyond the traditional, the farm also produces a variety of flavoured pecorinos (the chili-coated version was excellent) and a smoked scamorza style great for bringing home in a suitcase. The modest space also has a fridge full of local meat products and jars full of the region's honey and traditional sauces. A real treasure trove and worth pulling over for.
Montepulciano
Larger than Montalcino, Montepulciano has a sprawling modern town that spreads well beyond its historic centre. Despite this, it's particularly photogenic from a distance thanks to the small, domed church of San Biagio nestled in the slopes under the fortified summit, and the fact that most of the modern town is screened by trees.
As you'd expect, you want to find the car park at the base of the old walled town (it's by the main tourist office and across from the Giardino di Poggiofanti) and walk up. Tuscan sightseeing is tremendous for the calf muscles.
Eighteenth century scholar and collector Pietro Bucelli decided to display his accumulated Etruscan and Roman funerary monuments in the facade of his palazzo on the main street. It's a quirky, museum-quality display that most tourists walk by without noticing.
Continue up the hill past the church of Sant'Agostino, where there's a bizarre year-round nativity scene strung with disco lights that's worth a peek, and try to be past the Torre di Pulcinella looking back on it as the hour strikes. The traditional clown of Italian comedy stands above in his black and white costume, ringing the time at the top of the hour. There's no doubt some darkly satirical meaning about us being at the mercy of time, but watching it will bring a smile to your face.
Keep climbing and bear a bit to your right and you'll come to the Piazza Grande, the requisite town centre overlooked by duomo and town hall, with a sculpture-bedecked well in the centre. It looks a lot like the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence and the town hall in Volterra; so much so, in fact, that it stood in for the former in the Medici series on Netflix and the latter in the Twilight films.
Montalcino would be hard-pressed to sustain a whole day's sightseeing, but you could easily spend more time Montepulciano. So while the two towns fit comfortably into this one-day itinerary, you could also split this route into two distinct days. An approach you'd definitely want to take if you were going to be serious about the wine tasting.
The wines
Like Chianti, both Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano are made from the Sangiovese grape. Brunello is 100% Sangiovese while the other is blended with up to 20 % Canaiolo Nero and/or small amounts of other local varieties. While the ingredients and wine making process may be much the same as Chianti, the results are starkly different. Both of these wines tend to have less tannin and more fruit. Wine experts compare them ... particularly Brunellos ... to top Burgundian Pinot Noirs.
Both start out with the flavours of light red fruits and age into more complex, herbal and woodland notes. Experts say the best Montepulcianos go from strawberry and sour cherry to thyme and forest floor, while the Brunellos start with blackberry and plum and head towards a slightly heavier tobacco and chocolate. I doubt I could pick up the difference in a blind tasting, but I can tell you that I like both far better than any Chianti and tend to prefer Brunellos. Maybe it's my roots; this is one of the most popular fine wine imports to the USA, with Americans typically buying 30% of annual production.
While you'll occasionally see an "aperto" sign welcoming you onto a producer's property this region is similar to Burgundy in the expectation that you'll go to the main towns and taste at local shops. Both towns are laden with wine specialists carrying vast varieties and offering tastes. Both denominations are characterised by small, family-run producers, so picking any particular winery to visit would be tough for anyone but an expert, anyway.
The people working in the shops are experts. Your best bet is to go in and give them a brief. Do you like light and fruity, or deep and complex? What price points do you typically drink in? Are you looking to buy a bottle to have with dinner tonight, and if so, what are you eating? Or do you want to bring a few bottles home to lay down for a while? Find people you like, have a conversation and let them guide you to their choices. In both towns we ended up with excellent bottles from tiny producers unlikely to be found beyond the immediate area. All the shops ship, of course, though postage makes that an expensive proposition to the States and Brexit has escalated the price for Brits. Probably better to just enjoy and learn while you're there.
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