Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / Italy / Montespertoli / Villa Le Calvane
Villa Le Calvane
Montespertoli, Tuscany, Italy · Independent · Accessible Luxury
The estate first appears in the records in 1135, when Florence sacked the castle next door and took the surrounding land, and wine has been made here since 1427. A Frescobaldi bought it in 1815, a Swiss family lured the winemaker Vittorio Fiore back to Italy for it in 1980, and the owners who arrived in 2011 brought him back again to replant. Ten suites in the main villa now, plus a three-bedroom house, a restaurant called La Terrazza, and an infinity pool that looks over the Chianti hills toward Florence, twenty kilometres off.
- 10 rooms
- Opened 2017
- Rooms from 323 sq ft (30 m²)
About Villa Le Calvane
- The castle next door, Montegufoni, sheltered Botticelli's Primavera, Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna and Uccello's Battle of San Romano through the war. A Monuments Man walked in on 265 Uffizi and Pitti paintings stacked against its walls in August 1944.
- In 1305 Leo Acciaioli built an oratory, Our Lady of the Snows, on the exact ground the villa now occupies. Traces of it were still visible in the eighteenth century before they were lost.
- Vittorio Fiore replanted the vineyards mainly to Merlot and Cabernet, and the olive oil pressed on the estate goes out to restaurant kitchens abroad.
- The villa opened as a hotel in April 2017, after nine centuries in which the place had only ever been a working farm and wine estate.
- Entry-level rooms start at 323 sq ft (30 m²).
History
The first written record of Le Calvane dates to 1135, when Florentine forces destroyed the neighbouring castle of Montegufoni and seized the land around it, including the ground the villa stands on. In 1305 Leo Acciaioli, a figure of consequence in the Florence of his day, commissioned the church of Santa Maria Nuova at Montegufoni and the Oratory of Our Lady of the Snows, the latter built on the exact site of the present villa. Remains of those structures were still visible in the eighteenth century and have since disappeared. Wine production on the estate is documented from 1427 and has continued through a long line of noble owners.
In 1815 Matteo de Frescobaldi bought Le Calvane and revived the wine and oil making that built its reputation. In 1980 a Swiss family acquired it and persuaded the winemaker Vittorio Fiore to return to Italy; he stayed until 2005 and established the quality of the cellar. The estate sold again in 2011, to a small group of international entrepreneurs and local enthusiasts who invited Fiore back and began replanting several hectares, mostly to Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, alongside the Chianti and the olive groves.
The same owners restored the villa and opened it as a boutique hotel in April 2017. The main house holds ten suites and La Terrazza, the estate restaurant, with a separate three-bedroom residence, Villa Tornabuoni, for families or groups taking the place privately. There is an infinity pool facing the Chianti hills, a jacuzzi, a lobby bar and a panoramic function room used for weddings and tastings.
The setting
Le Calvane sits on the hills of Montagnana Val di Pesa in the commune of Montespertoli, twenty kilometres from Florence, with the Castello di Montegufoni as its immediate neighbour. That castle has one of the better stories in Tuscany: from 1942 it served as a repository for the art evacuated from Florence's museums, and by the summer of 1944 Botticelli's Primavera was propped on wooden supports against a wall in its main hall, with Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna, Cimabue's Maesta, Paolo Uccello's Battle of San Romano and hundreds of other pictures stacked two and three deep around it. German troops bivouacked in the building, villagers sheltered in it, and a battle was fought around it, but on 1 August 1944 the American art historian Frederick Hartt, one of the Monuments Men, reached the castle and found the collection largely unharmed. The paintings went home to Florence in 1945. Around the villa are the estate's own vineyards and olive groves, with Siena, San Gimignano, Greve in Chianti, Monteriggioni and Volterra all within a day trip.
Restaurants and bars
- Ristorante La Terrazza at Villa Le Calvane — Restaurant · Tuscan
Experiences
- Wine tastings — Wine tastings offered for private and corporate events at the estate.
Amenities
- Spacious and fully equipped meeting areas
- Garden access rooms and bright loggias
- Wedding planning and coordination
- Bespoke floral arrangements
- Music and lighting
- Catering for weddings, meetings and events
- Wine tastings, luncheons and brunches
Open Villa Le Calvane in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.