Podere Terreno ★★☆

A bedroom

Roberto Melosi left a glam hotel career at London’s Savoy for the simple pleasures of life back in Tuscany as proprietor of an agriturismo (inn on a working farm).

His Paris-born wife, Sylvie Haniez, who had owned a modern art gallery in Florence, decided the only proper way to run an agriturismo was to share communal dinners with their guests in the French table d’hôte style.

Together, they restored a sixteenth-century Chianti farmhouse set amidst vineyards atop a hillock between Radda and Volpaia. furnishing seven country-comfy guest rooms with a hodgepodge of painted metal bedsteads, carved wood vanities, and worn terracotta floors.

They and treat you like family—the last one to go to bed has to turn out the lights, the wonderful home-cooked dinner is served promptly at 7:30pm, and they'll scold you if you aren't being a good guest.

As this is a vineyard—the light, peppery organic Chianti Classico is made by their adult son, Pier Francesco, who gave up dirt bike racing to study agriculture at the University of Florence—each guest room is named for a local grape. Malvasia, Trebbiano, Vernaccia, and Ciliegiolo are all on the side of the house with the best views over the surrounding vineyards. 

In summer, guests enjoy the same view from the patio during family-style dinners of lasagne, steaks, and stuffed tomatoes. Roberto and Silvie sit at either end of the long communal table and keep the conversation lively. In cooler weather, dinner moves into the common room—stone walls hung with oil paintings, ceramics, and Silvie’s collection of sun icons; copper pots dangling from thick wood beams.

The room’s seven-foot-wide fireplace is surrounded by armchairs and a sofa that Sale-e-Pepe (“salt-and-pepper”), the miniature schnauzer Roberto and Sylvie rescued from the side of the road, is more than happy to share.

With this quiet countryside retreat slowly growing in fame, the nightly extended family can get quite multinational.

Most who sign up for just a night or two in the simple, comfortably rustic rooms with old peasant furnishings and firm beds on terra-cotta floors return the following year to stay for a week.

Breakfast includes salami, excellent homemade marmalades and jams, and soft sheep cheese; and, the scrumptious dinner is accompanied by their own velvety chianti, consistently rated among the top 25 in the Classico region.

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Farm stays

Stay on a working farm agritourismo and experience the best of Italian hospitality and countryside tradition

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Farm stay