An Afternoon At Castello Dei Rampolla

The road to Castello Dei Rampolla winds through the green, rolling hills south of Florence. Dipping and diving through little medieval towns with their ancient churches and little cafes. It's called Conca d'Oro, or the golden basin — the name refers to the endless fields of wheat that once grew here, rather than the pristine spring sunshine that douses the landscape.

We're heading into Chianti country. They've been making wine here for almost a thousand years. You can feel it in the air, see it in the soil. At Castello Dei Rampolla we're greeted by Sissi, a lovable, energetic fluffy Alsatian. Sissi, named for the Austrian empress, and Martino are our guides for the day.

Martino recently started taking over the family business. "I'm a farmer now," he says, and you can sense he's enjoying the change in career. The property has been in the family since 1739. The estate is even older. But they only started making wine here in the early 70s.

Natural wine has become increasingly popular in recent years, but it's an ambiguous term. As much marketing as it is a style of wine or agriculture. Martino is keen to stress they've been making wine here in harmony with nature since the beginning, and practicing biodynamic agriculture since 1994.

Touring the gently sloping hills of the vineyard, Martino points out the subtle and not so subtle ways things are changing: the trees he's planted, the grass left to grow freely, which helps protect the soil, the flowers and herbs that spring up, and the bees that orbit them, the new machines they use for harvesting that have less environmental impact, the changes they've made to the landscape itself to improve the natural irrigation of the soil.

I first met Martino a few years ago in Florence where he runs Numeroventi, an artists' residency housed in an ancient palazzo — a noble expression of Florentine architecture, all high ceilings and beautiful frescos — which he gives over to artists, designers, chefs and musicians as a place to stay, create and work. He's recently expanded it to a second location in Brazil, where he's just come back from.

Both Numeroventi and Castello Dei Rampolla are manifestations of ancient Florentine traditions alive in the modern world. It might be a bit grandiose to describe the work of Numeroventi as similar to the system of Renaissance patronage of the Medici that graced us with Michelangelo et al, but it's part of that lineage, fostering respect and innovation for all kinds of artistic practices. Castello Dei Rampolla is an earthier if similar expression, rooted in the Tuscan earth and its history. And Martino is also bringing them together, inviting upcoming and established wine producers as residents at Numeroventi as well.

Martino shows us into the vast space, filled with concrete amphorae and clay barrels, where the winemaking process starts. Martino explains the different lengths of ageing of the different wines they make, and how each step of the process changes and brings out the natural tastes and aromas of the wine, deepening or lightening it through various macerations and pressings. "You cannot fake it," Martino says. "A bottle of wine will inevitably read with all its truth, and all the hard work and care that goes into it. If you do something wrong during the process the wine will suffer."

From here we head to a cellar blasted into the hillside with dynamite by a particularly brave ancestor. Martino taps one of the vast rows of oak casks and gives us a taste straight from the barrel, before taking us on a tour of the house itself — the labyrinth of rooms he used to sneak around as a child, dipping into libraries and sitting rooms. As well as a working vineyard, Castello Dei Rampolla is very much a family home still, reassuringly out of time, full of portraits of various civic-looking relatives from back in the old days. There's the old family chapel, the old well, a greenhouse for growing lemons, a few ancient olive trees, and Sissi bounding around in the sun or napping in the shade.

The family feel is there even in the naming of the wines themselves, all taking their names from aunts and uncles, fathers and grandfathers. Martino pulls a bottle of d'Alceo from 2020 and opens it.

Alceo planted these vines himself in the 70s, alongside Giacomo Tachis, the first winemaker the family worked with, blending together Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese grapes. It's an intense and deep red but without heaviness — Martino describes it as the personification of the vineyard itself. Liù, named for an aunt, is made exclusively from Merlot but aged less, with a balance of purity and complexity. We open a white next, matured in clay barrels, without sulphites and left unfiltered — a deep gold in colour, all honey and orange on the palate.

"We are in the midst of a generational shift here," Martino says. "The way we are slowly adapting our wines and techniques for this new climate and younger palates."

After we've finished the tasting we drive down the road to a small town for a long lunch of Tuscan delicacies — thin slices of salami, thick ribbons of pici and a glass of local sparkling wine. A quick coffee and we're back on the winding roads of Chianti and on our way home.

What makes Castello Dei Rampolla so beautiful isn’t just the wine, or the history, or the spectacular countryside, but the continuity. The sense that Martino, like the vines Alceo planted fifty years ago, is taking something already deep-rooted and tending it forward with care, and patience. You cannot fake it, as he says. The land will always read the truth.