Tenuta Torciano — Attraction in San Gimignano

We just visited this beautiful place for my birthday. Marco, from the St. Regis Hotel, set up this magical day for us. He is so kind, generous & thoughtful. The day started with Marco giving me a beautiful birthday present that he picked out from one of my favorite shops in Florence. He then introduced us to Matteo. Marco arranged a private driver for the entire day. Matteo is so wonderful & fun & I instantly bonded with him!

Marco & Matteo told me told me to expect lots of birthday surprises all day! On our way to the winery, Matteo wished me a happy birthday & gave me a beautiful birthday present. I was so touched by his thoughtfulness & generosity.

On our way to the winery Matteo took the scenic route & told us about the history & architecture of so many beautiful places in Florence.

At the winery, we met the wonderful staff. We started our day there with a delicious glass of white wine then we went outside to meet our truffle hunting guide, Alessandro & his truffle dog, Spillo. He taught us about the different varieties of truffles, how they grow & how he trains his dogs to find truffles.

Alessandro & Spillo are such a great team. It was a pleasure to meet & watch them work together finding a large amount of truffles. I could have done this all day with them. I loved it & loved Alessandro. He is a treasure!

After truffle hunting, we went into the kitchen for our cooking class & met Chef Simone. He is so kind, knowledgeable & patient. First we made tiramisu. Then we learned how to prepare artichokes to be used in a special sauce & then made truffle pasta with the truffles that Alessandro & Spillo found with us earlier. We learned so much from Chef Simone. This was not a cooking demonstration. This is very much a hands-on learning experience.

After cooking class we had a wine tasting with Leonardo. He taught us about wine making & wine paring. We tasted 11 different wines. Marco from the St. Regis arranged for us to have a very special 25 year old wine as part of our tasting. During the tasting, we were served a beautiful charcuterie plate, & an absolutely delicious lunch of all the dishes we helped prepare & then another special added surprise, an amazing T-Bone steak!

After this delicious lunch, we were served the tiramisu we made, but the surprises didn't stop there. I was presented with a gorgeous birthday cake as they were singing Happy Birthday! This whole special menu was hand selected by Marco & it couldn't have been any better.

It was a magical day at Tenuta Torciano. We met so many lovely people. Matteo stayed with us the entire day & took many videos & pictures to preserve all these amazing memories for us. You would think after being with us for over 7 hours, Matteo would want to head back to the St. Regis but he surprised us again by driving us to San Gimignano. A beautiful small walled medieval hill town in the province of Siena, Tuscany!

After exploring the town for a bit, we met Matteo back at this van & started back to the hotel, or so we thought, but no, Matteo had yet another surprise for us. He drove us to Piazzale Michelangelo. He was so adorable, he had us shut our eyes when we got close & then open them only after he parked the van. It was a breathtaking look at beautiful Florence from above.

Driving back to the St. Regis, Matteo had one more surprise for me, a beautiful gold keychain with the initials TT from Tenuta Torciano. Unbeknownst to me, he saw me admiring it back at the winery & got one for me!! All the kindness, thoughtfulness, attention to detail and flawless guidance from Matteo and Marco have touched my heart. This was unforgettable experience & the best birthday I have ever had. These special people have hearts of gold & I am so blessed to have gotten to know them & now call...

We completed the truffle hunting experience with lunch & wine tasting.

TLDR :: 5 hour experience. Great fun truffle hunting, amazing host. Delicious food. Organisation of people / food overall poor.

To start, we arrived at the venue and were welcomed with a glass of wine. It was quiet upon arrival and a very nice welcome.

Then we were taken by a guide (Matteo) for a walk while talking about the winery, the history & some facts about truffles. Matteo was very informative and well spoken. It was a pleasure to have met him.

We were then walked back to the entrance hall (later to find we were near the truffle experience so not sure why we walked there to get a buggy back…)

We met with Alessandro and Speillo (the dog) to start our truffle hunting experience. Alessandro and Speillo get 5/5 stars for everything. The talk was fascinating, the information was amazing & the answers to all questions were thorough. We had the most amazing experience with them and couldn’t fault this part of the experience at all. We were lucky to see some truffles being hunted, Spiello was very hungry on our tour though!

We then walked back to the entrance hall where the organisation went down hill. It was very busy in the small room, it was not known who was in what groups and where people should have been going. After a 10/15 minute wait our name was shouted out like a fast food restaurant and we followed a server to where we would eat.

The location for lunch was gorgeous. A shame it wasn’t outside on a pleasant day but I think it’s luck of the draw.

Once seated, with some other tables, we were served our appetiser (meat = cold cuts & cheese, vegetarian = mixed vegetables & cheese) and 2 glasses of wine to pair with it. But then we were told to wait 5 minutes for another group before we could start. This wait ended up being over 20 minutes long. It wasn’t the best start to the meal.

The second course came (meat = lasagne with truffle, vegetarian = penne, passata & truffle), as the only vegetarian in the party, I was served the lasagne.. so had to send that back and wait for my vegetarian plate to be served. Sadly letting my partners lasagne go cold as we wanted to eat together. Once the food did arrive it was delicious.

Between the second course and third course, our dessert & dessert wine turned up, which was two courses too early - meaning we had to leave them to the side, we were sensing a theme at this point.

Then, the third course (meat & vegetarian = truffle spaghetti) arrived while I was still eating my second course. My partner however could make a start and didn’t have to watch me eat. Again, the food itself was gorgeous.

For our fourth course (meat = pork & vegetables, vegetarian = burrata & vegetables). No comments, was delicious!

During the fourth course we did get the hard sell for products, of which we purchased the balsamic as it is soo nice.

After we were allowed to eat our dessert.

As we were on the truffle experience all our courses featured truffle which was a very nice touch.

Duration - arrived at 11:30 and left at 16:30.

Overall - Experience - truffle hunting with Alessandra & Spiello is a must. 100% recommend both human & dog were so lovely and would have liked more time with them. Food - was delicious, it was just a shame the timings and attention to details (serving a veggie meat) wasn’t up to par. Maybe this isn’t the norm, hopefully just a bad...

We discovered Tenuta Torciano as a recommendation from our hotel concierge, after explaining our limited time in the region and through his professional analysis of the energy level and needs of my wife, nine-year-old daughter, and myself. This suggestion turned out to serve as the perfect conclusion to our short time in Florence and as an experience that was absolutely fantastic and one we will not forget!

The winery sent Mateo to pick us up in a Mercedes SUV and he was extremely professional and courteous. We had a delightful ride to the Tuscan countryside, complete with history lessons on the region and some sightseeing along the way! Mateo was extremely personable, knowledgeable, and just generally great company and very entertaining! Our trip, of around forty minutes from the heart of Florence, just flew by with Mateo.

Upon arrival, we were graciously greeted by multiple staff members, before being escorted into a waiting area of sorts, where we were served a delicious rose - peach/strawberry nose.

Before too long, we and another family were directed to our transport to the truffle forest, meeting up with Mateo again! On our way, we made several stops, to take a closer look at many points of interest and learned a lot more about the winery.

Arriving at the truffle forest, we were greeted warmly by the next stars, Alessandro and Spillo! After a full demonstration, and Q/A session, on the many different types of truffles and their different attributes and harvest seasons, as well as a detailed education on the Lagotto Romagnolo (truffle dog, originally used for waterfowl hunting) we were then able to participate in the hunting process!

Once Spillo was set free, after running off his pent-up energy, he immediately got to work (in response to gentle encouragement from his handler) and found many a truffle for us! When he found the truffle, Alessandro immediately called him off and let the visitors (us) dig the actual truffle! Not only did this give us a new appreciation of one of our family favorites, but it was also a very exciting moment for our daughter, chasing after the dog around and digging the fresh truffles, which smelled amazing.

We were then driven back to the main part of the winery for our dinner and to get into the bulk of the wine tasting. More of that fantastic rose for a cleanse and then onto antipasto – a full board of everything I love. Personally, I could make a meal from this portion, but of course they had much more in store for us. We had a proper full course dinner, along with many small samplings and treats in between. Every single bite and sip was phenomenal!

In typical fashion, we had a professional pairing to go with each course, starting with lighter whites and reds before getting into the deeper (older and more expensive) wines which were my favorite.

Dinner and dessert wrapped up and we were presented with an option to purchase any wine we sampled along with anything from their full collection to be shipped to us in the US. They have a distribution center in Illinois. We took advantage of the opportunity to join and ordered several wines and oils to be delivered.

Our order came quickly and was complete and we’re now able to order any of these delicious wines and oils any time we wish!

I hope to get back to the winery and stay at their hotel, at least for a night, sometime in the near future and hope to see all of these kind...