Embrace slow travel and sip biodynamic wines in Tuscany.
This story is part of our collection of sustainable trips where travelers make a difference.
In the Tuscan countryside, simple pleasures nearly outnumber olive trees: bike rides on cypress-lined roads, lazy mornings and hearty breakfasts in hilltop farmhouses, afternoons kneading pasta dough with your tour guide’s nonna – and wine, of course. Tuscany’s wine-making tradition dates to the eighth century, and today the region produces some of the world’s most coveted reds. Spurred by drier growing seasons and a desire to embrace more-sustainable practices, a slate of wineries has gone biodynamic. Travel advisors can work with IC Bellagio, one of Virtuoso’s on-site tour connections in Italy, to arrange tastings, winemaker meet and greets, farm visits, and farm-to-table dinners at some of Tuscany’s best organic wineries, including three favorites we’ve rounded up here.
Chianti countryside.
Podere Le Ripi
Location: Montalcino, Siena
Known for: Brunello di Montalcino
Doing good: Winemaker Sebastian Nasello has been producing biodynamic wines for more than a decade. Visitors can also sample the estate’s olive oils and tour its organic vegetable garden and working farm.
Casa Emma
Location: San Donato in Poggio, Chianti Classico
Known for: Chianti Classico, Super Tuscans, extra-virgin olive oil
Doing good: The solar-powered, hilltop winery also produces its own grape pomace flour, milled from dried grape skins left over from the vinification process.
Ornellaia
Location: Bolgheri, Livorno
Known for: Super Tuscans, Bordeaux-style reds
Doing good: This high-profile winery on Tuscany’s Mediterranean coast partners with a different contemporary artist each year on a special bottle-label design. Proceeds from auctioned bottles are donated to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to support the Mind’s Eye program, which gives individuals who are blind or have low vision access to museum art.