Poggio Stenti: A Family Story from Montecucco, Alta Maremma
A family story from Montecucco, between Montalcino and Monte Amiata, where tradition and Sangiovese still shape everyday life.
The Orcia River runs quietly through the valley, slightly north of Poggio Stenti winery and south of Montalcino, an almost unnoticed border between two wine worlds. On one side, the slopes rise toward Monte Amiata and the perhaps more rural world of the Alta Maremma; on the other, the vineyards of Brunello stretch across the hills. It is here that Eleonora Pieri runs Poggio Stenti together with her family, the small Montecucco winery rooted in land her family has farmed for generations.
In the nearby village of Sant’Angelo Scalo, Carlo Pieri, Eleonora’s father, has spent more than forty years behind the counter of his family butcher shop, preparing salumi with a view toward Banfi winery and the road to Montalcino. The family farm Poggio Stenti lies only a few kilometres away. Here her grandfather once worked the land as a traditional Tuscan contadino, raising pigs, growing olive trees and making wine for household use and local clients.
Today, Poggio Stenti focuses primarily on viticulture and winemaking, even though pigs and cattle are still raised on the farm, as in the past. Eleonora Pieri entered the family business in 2006 and has since then dedicated herself to developing the farm’s wine tourism activities.
“We are a winery where family values and the traditions of Alta Maremma run like a connecting thread through everything we do,” says Eleonora.
A Winery Built on Family Values and Tradition
Authenticity embraces a bit of everything in the narrative below of family, tradition, and sustainability.
Family and tradition:
Her grandfather was a farmer who, in the 1950s, cultivated cereals, olive trees, vineyards, and raised cattle and pigs at the Podere Stenti farm. He produced olive oil and wine for household use and sold them in bulk to local clients. Podere Stenti is located close to the village of Sant’Angelo Scalo, in the part of Val d’Orcia that leans more toward Maremma. “Stenti” means “hardship” or “extreme struggle”, which might not seem very enticing as a name for a winery, but it clearly alludes to the history of that area, including Montalcino and Val d’Orcia.
After WWII, it was a rural and very impoverished area due to the struggling postwar economy, which in turn led to a certain fragmentation of the sharecropping system. When the railroads were built, they bypassed Montalcino, effectively cutting this part of the valley off from many opportunities during the early and mid-20th century.
Carlo Pieri, Eleonora’s father, decided to give the business new momentum in the early 1980s. After learning pork processing and meat curing, he opened a butcher shop in Sant’Angelo Scalo in 1984. Those were the years when the area began to prosper again, following foreign investment and the Mariani brothers’ founding of the Banfi winery in the late 1970s.
The Pieri family benefited from the local upswing, prompting Carlo to invest in the family farm, especially in viticulture and winemaking. The raising of cattle and pigs had always been at the centre of farm activity; Carlo wanted to strengthen the winery side more effectively. They adhered to the Montecucco DOC appellation when it was instituted in 1998; before that, they could mainly produce wines as IGT Toscana (instituted in 1992) or table wine. Later, came the appellations Montecucco DOCG in 2009 and Maremma Toscana DOC in 2011.
Sustainability:
The farm comprises 30 hectares, of which 6 are under vine and about 4 hectares are olive trees, in clay and calcareous soil rich in minerals influenced by the nearby Mount Amiata, an ancient extinct volcano. They are organic and try to be as self-sufficient as possible on the farm, where, for example, manure from the cattle and pigs is used as a natural fertiliser in the vineyards and olive grove. One could say that they have their very own farm-to-table system, channelled through the winery, wine and food experiences, and the butcher shop.
The Wines of Poggio Stenti in Alta Maremma
Sangiovese and Vermentino are the two flagship grapes of the winery. They produce two monovarietal Sangiovese wines — Tribulo Montecucco Sangiovese DOCG and Pian di Staffa Montecucco Sangiovese Riserva DOCG — and, if one includes their Maremma Toscana DOC rosé, a third Sangiovese expression.
The remaining wines are Poggio Stenti Montecucco DOC Rosso — mainly Sangiovese with a small percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon — and a 100% Vermentino under the Maremma Toscana DOC.
Vermentino is a grape variety that produces wines with character, distinct minerality and notable ageing potential. They also have a small plot of Ciliegiolo, but Eleonora says they have not created a label yet because the volume is very small.
If you could choose one wine to present, which one would it be?
“I would choose Tribulo, our monovarietal Sangiovese wine, because it is the wine that makes me feel at home, it reminds me of my family”, says Eleonora. “I recently restyled our wine labels, and on the Tribulo label, I had an image designed of my grandfather working the land.” I wanted to honour my grandfather because he was always around here at the farm; it all started with him.
“Tribulo is indeed the wine that lies closest to my heart … it tastes of home”, Eleonora adds.
Eleonora is currently participating in my free course Trasforma l’uva in parole, where I teach storytelling for wine producers. Eleonora won the Week 1 feedback raffle and received this article as a prize.
Message me if you want to join the waitlist for the next edition of Trasforma l’uva in parole. The course will be offered in both Italian and English.