Vineyard Story

Vine growing, the leading feature of Tuscan agriculture, was a rich resource for my farm. Since 1960 all the fields of the farm were bordered by rows of vine, but my father decided to impruve vine growing gathring all the rows of vine in a single plot pround: the vineyard. The wine production was satisfactory in the seventies and eighties, but gradually it bagan declining until the production was only for the family and for few friends. In the middle of ninetens wine had a sudden revival and many tourists appreciated it very much and many of them liked to bring back home some bottles of tuscan wine.In those year we were restored some old farm houses to turn them into apartments fo rent, when we had the idea to increase vine growing and to produce wine of better quality.
In 2002 I found some notes written by my father about a field where he wanted to pleant a new vineyard. Then I spoke to my mother and she told me that the field was called "Ranco". This local word means "field situated in the mountains". This field was terraced and along the border of every terrace there were vines, olive trees and fruit trees. Some old men who worked, in their young yearsm for my grandfather told me that the grapes of "Ranco" were famous in the valley. Many people wanted these grapes from my grandfather to improve the quality of their wine. With the increasing use of the machine in agriculture my grandfather and my father decided to leave this field, because it could be worked only by men with draught oxen. My father tried to prepare it for the use of tractor trasforming "Ranco" into a modern vineyard. But in the half of the eighties the sale wine was diminuishing and my father abandoned his plan. The first vineyard planted in 1970 is now at the end of its biological life. So I decided to plant a new vineyard in "Ranco". On the 17 th January 2005 I began levelling, trenching, screening the soil and then we planted the vines. During these works I found a very old olive tree and I left it as a proof of the old life of "Ranco". I hope this vineyard will produce excellent wine and in this case I will have realized my father's plan.

Vineyards view

Old Vineyard

New vineyard