Questions re visiting wineries

Joined : 22 Mar 2008 Posts : 2

My husband and I (and our two teenage daughters) will be staying at a farm house in Montepulciano from 4 April to 7 April. Are there any wine tasting tours scheduled for that weekend? If not, how would we visit the wineries on our own? Are you aware of a website I could go to for information? Do we have to make reservations? Are the wineries generally open on the weekends? Thank you so much! Bridget

Subject: Re: Questions re visiting wineries Sun Mar 23, 2008 8:58 am

Dear Bridget,
First of all welcome to the forum.
Personally I don't have any tours scheduled to Montepulciano on that specific week-end, but since you will be staying in Montepulciano and will most probably have a car it would probably make most sense to set up some appointments directly with the wineries. I would do that for the Saturday as on Sundays most places keep closed.
One of the nicest experiences in Montepulciano is probably the one you get at the winery Avignonesi. You can ask for a 12 o'clock tour and end it up with a lunch afterwards. The lunch experience is pretty exclusive and you will taste the wines with the different courses. The tour and lunch is 70 Euro per person and well worth it! Contact Alessia at avignonesi@avignonesi.it
Boscarelli is another wonderful winery that you could try and contact for an appointment (or just pass by) at info@poderiboscarelli.com. Tenuta Valdipiatta has good wines, but their tours are simply too expensive, so stay away and buy there wines if you want to try them. Dei is also very nice to visit - you can set up an appointment emailing info@cantinedei.com. Poliziano is one of the bigger wineries and also quite prestigious - you will pass it as you go to Avignonesi so you could stop by and do a tasting.
If you need to read a little about the wines before you leave, email me and I will send you the hand-out that I give on the tours.
Have a great trip!

Joined : 22 Mar 2008 Posts : 2

Just to follow up. We had a wonderful time on our recent trip to Montepulciano. We didn't visit a single winery. Instead, we stopped into the various cantinas and enoteche in and on the way to town. We arrived back in Naples with 63 bottles of wine, 7 varieties of cheese, some delicious salame and olive oil. I can't wait to return! Eventually, we will get to a winery but, for this first trip, I did not feel that I missed out. The purpose of the trip was to taste a variety of wines and bring a bunch home. Goal accomplished! We will eventually pick a few favorite wines and we'll get to those particular wineries.

What a beautiful area, though. We did some horseback riding too. So gorgeous. It was difficult to return to Naples....