Col d'Orcia Brunello di Montalcino — Attraction in Montalcino

Wine tasting at the winery “Col d'Orcia”: Here we meet Francesco Cinzano, who is the chairman of the visionary “Col d'Orcia” winery. The Cinzano family arrived in 1973 in this area. It is now an organic producer of world class red wines. “Col d’Orcia” literally means the hill overlooking the Orcia river. This river marks the south west border of the Brunello di Montalcino territory. The name of the farm is intrinsically linked to the physical location where the vineyards are planted. Inside the estate there is a little shop, where the charming Daniela Dragoni is selling the delicious wines, which are produced here. We decided for the “Rosso di Montalcino”. This wine is a classic wine, made also with pure Sangiovese grapes. It is released already one year after the harvest. This way it retains all the freshness and fruitiness of a young wine. At the same time, it develops the intensity that only the Montalcino area is capable to deliver. Daniela has also a very tasty olive oil and a variety of local produced...

Loved my second visit to this winery and hope to return again. Our afternoon tour was quite relaxed, very informative, and also included meeting count Francesco Cinzano in the wooded area of the property when he was out on a walk with his two dogs. This time I learned more of the property history of when it was a mill with the D’Orcia powering it. The office where you check in is where bakery was - the oven is on the outside wall. Upon arrival you can see one of the mill stones leaning against a wall along the walkway. This time we sampled more of the wines and made some nice purchases to take home. Looking forward to using their olive oil. It wasn’t as busy here in June like it can be during harvest season, but if you are more interested in seeing all of the operation at once then you might try the end of September. I really enjoyed our hostess who was able to spend plenty of time with us on...

They had double booked us with some an Italian couple and the guide wanted us to rebook at first. This was not possible because we were leaving the next day and therefore she decided to take both couples on the tour. She seemed less than happy about it and really arrogant in general.

During the tour she started speaking 50/50 English and Italian, but after a while it was closer to 10% English and 90% Italian. We felt very left out and commented on it, thats when she exploded. She went off on a deranged rant about how we had insulted her and was not interested in wine.

It was completelybizarre situation and we tried to calm her down.

She later was remorseful but her apologies were not sincere.

My advice for you is to avoid this winery like the plague and take any of the other great ones...