L'Artevino — Restaurant in Montespertoli

Well, not sure how to start.. the food was ok.. not great, as e.g. the Fiorentina had the filet removed which kind of doesn't make it a Fiorentina but that would be ok.. the pasta needed a bit of salt and the octopus was a bit rubbery.. three stars out of five if not for what happened next.

The (plastic) wine list - picture posted - was four pages long and quite spectacular for a place like this with reasonable prices and a lot of older vintages at even low prices for ones that might be well past their prime. Weird.. they must have a big cellar somewhere off site as the plastic list also suggests the vintages don't change often.. ok.. let's order some that are old and see whether they're still drinkable.. so we order a 1997 red and a 2014 white... When the lady brought the wines she had already opened them inside.. weird.. but ok.. old corks etc.. not sure. when we looked and tasted the 1997 looked intense, dense, almost purple, instead of the almost rust brown fragile wine you'd expect after 26 years. The white one was almost transparent.. weird for a 2014 that had been on oak and should have an intense straw yellow color according to the winemaker.. We asked whether we could see the corks as now we were really intreagued.. not possible, as 'the kid had played with them'. Ok.. fair enough.. can we order another bottle of the same red then for comparison and have it opened at the table? After some back and forth alternatives (different wine altogether) were presented as this was unfortunately 'the last bottle'.. not only from the vintage offered, in general. funnily enough when we repeated it with the white it was the same process.. also the last bottle.. really? Ok.. time to redo the plastic wine list and scrap these two as a start.

To cut a long story short.. I'm a certified sommelier so to me this was a clear case of underestimating and trying to scam tourists.. we were just lucky to have two eloquent Italians and a grumpy wine nerd in the group otherwise this wouldn't have ended the way it did.

After complaining and making clear we would be happy to pay for the entry level wine they had refilled the bottles with but not the top wines we ordered, the wine was for free. So.. to be fair technically we had an evening with free wine that wasn't bad for entry level and we haven't been scammed.

My advice: When you order any wine here, make sure they open it...

This restaurant is wonderful. My family was staying in Montespertoli for a few days and we ended up going here twice. The food is so delicious and the service is very friendly. Everything we ordered was wonderful, from the appetizers to the desert. We ordered multiple appetizers, several pasta dishes, second courses, and deserts. The pasta is some of the best we had in Italy and everything else was just as amazing. They have a really good wine selection including local options from Montespertoli and the greater Tuscan area. They have menus in multiple languages (English, French, German, and dutch) but I would recommend looking at an Italian menu as well since there is a bit more information there. (I've noticed some reviews complain about the speed of the meal but they clearly do not understand that dinner in Italy, especially in a small restaurant in a small town, is always going to be a relaxed affair. It's cultural, it's not "bad" or...

this restaurant was recommended to us by our airbnb host, and we’re very glad we went! the parking can be a little tricky but the lady working there graciously moved her car so we could park in front of the restaurant. the service was wonderful and she brought us aperitivo on the house! the food was very good and the desserts were amazing. after dinner she even brought us limoncello without us asking. it was very quiet in the restaurant which was unfortunate as it was very good, but it’s probably busier in the summer. the prices were very reasonable as well. if you find yourself in montespertoli or area i suggest you choose this restaurant for...