Luca Perfetto, co-founder and CEO of Florencetown, speaks with us about wine tours, production history and the company’s new winery. Founded in 2006, Florencetown is a Florence-based tour operator offering top-notch experiences in Florence and Tuscany.
Our company began with the focus of providing high-quality excursions from Florence and has since developed to cover transportation, food and beverage and accommodation. This is how we arrived at taking over a resort in Chianti, a location that not only offers accommodation and a newly renovated restaurant, but also a winery. Since our philosophy is very much linked to the roots and distinguishing marks of our territory, our aim is to provide high-quality wines connected to the Impruneta territory.
In Tuscany, most wines are known for aging in Tuscan barrels much larger than French barriques. However, in the last few decades, barriques have taken over the aging process worldwide. Now, even Tuscan wine spends from a few months to years in small oak barriques–from French oak to American oak–a process that gives a particular taste to the wine, tobacco-like and subject to change depending on how and when the barrique was made.
At the Diadema winery at Villa Olmo, we’ve decided to turn to terracotta for the aging process. Looking back at Tuscany’s roots, namely the Romans and Etruscans, you’ll see that terracotta was once used to store, age and drink their wine. Impruneta is renowned for its terracotta production, which is why we asked a small producer in the area to build 5 large terracotta jars that store about 600 L each. This results in a select production of 3,000 L of wine aged for about 10 months, producing a very different flavor and aftertaste, as terracotta releases particular minerals that are not found in wooden barrels.
We also have other production methods for wine, such as those produced in French oak barriques. Visitors can attend our special wine lab to taste the different varieties of grapes in purezza {varietal} from the barrels, which you can personally mix together to come up with your very own specially made wine. Grab a shuttle bus from the city center to visit different wineries around the region with a final visit at Diadema, tours you can also follow on vespa or even a vintage cinquecento. Apart from visiting the winery, you’ll get to see the production side and aging process explained by our sommeliers, a great way of discovering the territory through its products.
Luca Perfetto
Head to destinationflorence.com to learn more about wine in Tuscany, where you’ll find vineyard tours, tastings and other wine-related offerings.
