The thousand-year-old “abbey of good culture” has belonged to the Giuntini family, now Stucchi Prinetti, since 1846. Its name literally signifies the abbey’s role in Western European cultural history as a place of worship and spiritual refuge as well as a center of learning and agricultural laboratory.

After WWII Piero Stucchi Prinetti transformed Coltibuono into a modern estate, selling instead of cellaring its best Chiantis and creating international branding for the Coltibuono name, as well as promoting Tuscan extra virgin olive oil. A devotion to Badia and a respect for its history guides the current,  seventh generation family members. Their challenge is to maintain the integrity of Sangiovese and Chianti Classico’s unique terroir through organic farming practices, clonal diversity, restrained use of new oak and excluding non indigenous grapes.

Coltibuono’s estate includes a “wine resort” restaurant, culinary school and other touristic activities.

The estate is situated on the Chianti region’s highest hills. Total acreage is 2,282: 180 vineyards and 44 olive groves. After ten centuries of uninterrupted agricultural tradition, all Coltibuono’s estate grapes are now organically grown, hand-picked and vinified using natural yeast. The first leading wine-producing firm in Chianti to wholly return to environmental sustainability, Coltibuono is also dedicated to the preservation and vinification of Sangiovese, producing three different Chianti Classico wines and one IGT wine exclusively from Sangiovese.

Their new, architecturally arresting and technologically innovative winery has minimal environmental impact and uses gravity flow, manual grape sorting, gentle conveyance of de-stemmed fruit to the fermentation tanks, smaller size vats for separate vinifications, a piston cap punch-down system, native yeasts and mostly maturation in casks over small barrels. The estate also produces a line of “Coltibuono”wines, made from grapes selected from small growers in Tuscany.