Life on an agriturismo on a vineyard in Tuscany, Italy: Part 2 (Chianti region)

I was a little surprised when our first post in living on an agriturismo in Tuscany, Italy was so well received! I mean, I know we had a blast but I wasn’t anticipating how much others would love it. I’m following up with our second stay at an agriturismo in Tuscany, Italy, this time on a working vineyard in Chianti! This region is the one you think about when you picture Tuscany in your head – with the beautiful rolling hills in the different shades of green and yellow.

To give you a little background, the Chianti Classico region of Italy is in the middle of Tuscany and any wine that is called ‘Chianti Classico’ must be fully produced on a vineyard within these boundaries (in the maroon area in the picture below). There are more qualifications as well, but I’ll get to those in another post that is a deep dive on wine tasting in the area!

Where we stayed – Castello di Bossi

We stayed in the south end of the region, on an agriturismo called Castello di Bossi. It is a working vineyard and winery that was started by Marco Bacci, who was actually the first producer in the region to export to the United States. I’ll write more about the tasting we did here later but they produce over two and half million bottles of wine a year! The whole estate is 650 hectares (a hectare is 10,000 square meters, so quite large) and 125 of those hectares have vines growing on them.

The actual apartment we stayed in was also super cute. Similar to the last one it had a downstairs area with a couch, kitchen and kitchen table and then upstairs was the bedroom and the bathroom. Overall in the estate there are three areas to stay and we stayed in the part called Bossi di sopra, which has five apartments in it.

It was a really cute place to stay, but the biggest gripe we had was with the wifi. No matter how many times we tried and how hard the host tried we just could not get a good signal (or, really, any signal) anywhere except the entrance door to the apartment. It made World Cup viewing very difficult (see below). That being said it was early in the season and they had just done renovations, so they were just getting the kinks out and they did give us another apartment with better wifi to use as our office, so they tried and it could have been way worse.

So what did we do?

Well, we did a lot in the area! We did a bunch of wine tastings and exploring and cooking and hanging out and swimming and all that. I’m going to have a separate post on all the wine tastings we did and then a separate post on the day we spent in Siena. But in this post I’ll write more about all the other places we went.

Overall this was similar to the time we spent in Montecarlo, in that we were in Castello di Bossi for about eight days and spent two of them just hanging out and chillax-ing. But on the other days we did something or the other, whether it was a small activity or a big one!

Visiting the small towns – Greve in Chianti, Radda in Chianti and Castellina in Chianti

In the Chianti Classico region there are a number of towns (depending on how you define a town…), with 4-5 of them being of decent size. We spent time in a couple of them and they were so cute!

Greve in Chianti

I would say Greve in Chianti is the biggest and most well-known town in the region. It has a population of over 14,000 people and is only about 30km south of Florence, making it an easy day trip for those based there.

Greve has a town square with lots of restaurants and gelato places, as well as enotecas (wine shops) and vineyard tours available in the immediate area. We spent our time here doing an awesome wine tasting, touring a wine museum and just walking around. It’s a super cute town to explore and definitely a must-stop if you are in the area!

Radda in Chianti

Even though it is quite a bit smaller (only about 1,500 residents) I think I enjoyed Radda in Chianti as a town itself even more than Greve in Chianti! The biggest draw for me is a walk on the wall on the edge of town, where you can get some stunning views of the different vineyards in the valley below. So pretty!

We happened to end up in Radda during the day of a festival! We didn’t know it was happening but saw the signs for “Radda Rinascimentale”, a renaissance festival, and decided to stick around. It was really neat to see, as the townspeople got really into it – dressing up, having a battle ball-game between two “factions” and a declaration in the center square. What a fun thing to stumble upon!

Castellina in Chianti

We didn’t really spend much time in Castellina in Chianti. We stopped in this little town of about 3,000 residents for lunch on our way out of the Chianti region, driving to our next villa (in the Emilia-Romagna region). But, it was just as cute as the others and I was finally able to convince light-eyed Damian to get some sunglasses (here was my argument: Do you know what is more expensive than buying glasses? Treating eye cancer. Mic drop.)

Sightseeing – yummy food, a vineyard reflection and a castle!

Ristoro di Lamole

We also did some other exploration in the area. As I mentioned, we aren’t really foodies, but sometimes a recommended restaurant is a good anchor point or stopover point when exploring.

I read about Ristoro di Lamole on a bunch of travel sites and blogs before coming to the area and we thought it was a must-do. It’s pretty tough to get a reservation so we called a few days in advance to get one outside on the patio.

So what did we think? To be answer first (#alwaysagoodconsultant) it was good but probably a bit over-hyped (i.e., we wouldn’t say it was the best place we have eaten). The views were amazing, and the fresh cheese to start were all really good. We also really enjoyed the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and bread they had and Damian enjoyed his dish of sausage and beans. I got the black risotto with mushrooms, and I usually love risotto, but this one was a bit bitter. We’re glad we checked it out but I wouldn’t say it is a must-do in the region.

Castello di Ama

Castello di Ama is another vineyard in the south of the region. The main reason we went was because we read about a sculpture garden they had. I wouldn’t say there are a ton of sculptures in the garden, but it was a really cute area and we’re so glad we went. It was a bummer we went on the one day the restaurant is closed (Tuesday), otherwise we would have definitely eaten lunch there.

But, our favorite part of visiting Castello di Ama was an installation called “Punti di Vista” or “Points of View”. Basically it is a large wall of mirrors with views to the vineyard below, through cut-out squares. It made for some gorgeous sights and amazing pictures!

Castello di Brolio

We visited a castle called Castello di Brolio, which is also located in the south of the Chianti Classico region. The castle was established in the 1100s by one of the most famous families from the region, the Ricasoli family. Because the castle was damaged in and rebuilt after a number of different wars there are a number of different archictural and decorative techniques used throughout.

The castle is currently a private residence (which is crazy) and the surrounding hectares are a working vineyard. It made for some beautiful sights!

The castle is located up on a hill and to get there you have to follow some very windy, very narrow dirt roads. The isolated location was neat to see and about halfway up the drive the Castello di Brolio has a restaurant that sits in the woods. While it was a little more expensive than the other place we have eaten it sure was a gorgeous place to have lunch!

What else did we do on this vineyard agriturismo?

Well, we tasted all the wines of course! Next up will be a post on all the different vineyard tours we did, the wines we tasted and which ones we liked best. Yay!

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Read more about our time in Italy using the links below:

• Italy Country Recap – What we loved (and didn’t love) in our six weeks there
• Italy – The plan for our six weeks here
• Italy – Visiting Pisa – the Leaning Tower and the Luminara festival
• Italy – Our day in Lucca
• Italy – Life on an agriturismo in Italy Part 1: Montecarlo (Tuscany)
• Italy – Four days in Bologna
• Italy – Life on an agriturismo in Italy Part 2: a vineyard in the Chianti region (Tuscany) (you are here!)
• Italy – Wineries and wine tasting in Chianti
• Italy – One day in Siena!
• Italy – Life on an agriturismo in Italy Part 3: Emilia Romagna
• Italy – Parmigiano Reggiano cheese factory and Balsamic Vinegar producer tours
• Italy – Hiking Cinque Terre
• Italy – Our three days in Florence
• Italy – Brunello wine tasting and visiting thermal baths
• Italy – Our three days in Rome