Tuscan life is an onion!
One of the things we’ve learned over the past five years is that owning a winery in Tuscany is a bit like peeling an onion.
Just when you think you’ve reached the middle...
...there’s another layer.
And each layer can make your eyes water.
When we wrote our last post, we were embracing our inner wine geeks. And, dear gentle reader, we could go deeper! We could throw around terms like malolactic fermentation, volatile acidity (this is not a commentary on modern politics), chaotic fermentation and phenolics. Niall also loves the phrase canopy management. He says it sounds like Tarzan’s job title.
Anyway, back on terra firma, we genuinely thought we were becoming proper winemakers.
Cute.
Because apparently the universe had other plans.
The next thing you know, we're sourcing bedside lamps, debating curtain hems, comparing mattresses with the seriousness of a Michelin inspector, assembling furniture with instructions translated from Swedish into Italian via what appears to have been ancient Sanskrit……and somehow becoming boutique hoteliers.
Well... almost boutique hoteliers.
After eight months (which occasionally felt like years) of renovations, four of our six luxury suites are finally welcoming guests. That’s right. Four.
As our first guests were checking in, we were gently encouraging the final two workmen to leave through the back door.
They seemed oddly reluctant.
It was almost as though they expected to greet the guests personally and receive compliments on the beautifully plastered walls.
The remaining two suites are almost finished, they are so tantalisingly close that we can almost taste the celebratory bottle of Vino Nobile.
Anyone who has ever renovated a property in Italy will understand that “almost finished” is a perfectly legitimate construction phase.
There were moments when we genuinely thought the last remaining builder would simply become part of the property.
Future guests would ask:
“Who’s that man carrying a spirit level?”
and we’d casually reply:
“Oh, that’s Marco. He’s been here since 2026.”
Thankfully, it hasn’t come to that.
Instead, we’re incredibly proud to be welcoming guests into the first four completed suites while we put the finishing touches to the final two.
We’ve inserted a few photos here because, after living through the renovation, we now feel obliged to show them to absolutely everyone.
What? You have a question?
Did we have any teething problems?
What an extraordinary thing to ask.
The air conditioning definitely wasn’t disconnected in two rooms because somebody forgot to connect the electricity to the units.
And our guests certainly didn’t discover that someone had emptied the entire water system by leaving a tap open at the opposite end of the property.
We deny everything.
All rights are reserved.
The good news is that, despite accidentally becoming interior designers, furniture builders, amateur plumbers, electricians-by-association and almost-hoteliers…
…we really have become proper winemakers.
Our 2022 Vino Nobile has just received the highest score awarded to any 2022 Vino Nobile in Decanter’s annual tasting of the vintage. Woo to the hoo hoo hoo!
Which makes us think that perhaps every layer of the onion was worth peeling after all.
That said, we’d still quite like the next layer to involve sitting on a terrace drinking wine instead of arguing about silicone sealant.
A couple can dream.
Toodles,
Niall & Paari