Founder · 1948–2019
Matteo Bellandi
Bought seven hectares on the southern hills of Siena in 1978 and made the first vintages in barrels under the family house.
He grew up on this ground before there was a label on it. His father farmed the slope, and the house they lived in had been standing since 1892. In 1978 Matteo bought seven hectares of it in his own name, with an old stone cellar on the land and no money for anything modern.
The first vintages were made in barrels under the family house. There was no winery to speak of and no plan to build one quickly. What there was instead was a conviction, repeated often enough that the family still repeats it, that a wine which has been hurried will taste hurried.
He worked the estate until his death in 2019. Most of what stands here was added while he was alive, a parcel at a time, and nothing about the way the wine is made was changed to keep up with it.
In his words
“I don’t want to make the most expensive wine in Tuscany. I want to make one we’ll still want to drink in twenty years.”
Matteo Bellandi, 1948–2019