It is known by all as Leonardo’s birthplace and a place of growth and training that inspired the genius to discover and create works that led to our current society.
The Lower Valdarno and the area that includes the town are a very green countryside between vineyards and olive groves that produce excellent wine and fine oil. Vinci is located on the slopes of Montalbano, an enchanting hill massif between the provinces of Florence and Pistoia; we are therefore in the heart of Tuscany.
Like all fortresses, Vinci was also born from the construction of a castle and from here we begin a little history of this suggestive town.
THE STORY OF VINCI
Vinci was also born as a territory in the hands of the Guidi Counts, those who founded Cerreto Guidi and who built the Vinci Castle around the year one thousand.
Around the middle of 1200, the Counts sold the town to the Municipality of Florence and although they took possession of it again in 1260, it was in 1273 that the fate of Vinci was determined by the possession of the Florentine municipality from then on.
The Castle, which still distinguishes the historic village today, is known, thanks to its particular shape, as the “ship’s castle”.
Until the end of the 1200s, the administrative organization was made up of peoples and plovers; the plovers was the territory of jurisdiction of a Parish Priest, at the head of a Parish Church and all of its faithful.
In reality these peoples did not have a real organization and for this reason, around the middle of the 1200s, several municipalities, including Vinci, began to be defined as Municipalities, an indication of the fact that they had acquired a more complex internal organisation, which included representative bodies and local government judiciaries.
It is at this moment that the walls are built, sometimes requested by the population itself, sometimes imposed by the government.
A decisive moment for the castle’s settlement structure can be considered the period between the 1430s and 1460s; in a relatively short period of time in the castles of Montalbano, including Vinci, walls were rebuilt, towers restored, fences repaired and expanded, moats cleaned, restoring efficiency to the defenses.
At the end of the fourteenth century there was the birth of the Mercatale, the square that opened at the foot of the castle, at the intersection of the route to and from Empoli with the road layout which, following the circuit of the castle walls, moved in a northerly direction, to the Montalbano ridge; the square was the loggia of the municipality where commercial transactions took place and today there are important companies not only for the territory but for the entire region at a national and international level, such as SAMMONTANA.
There was a village outside the walls of Vinci, which developed in the first decades of the fifteenth century and was the liveliest area due to the concentration of homes and activities of the Vinci population. The houses and cottages of the village, unlike those within the walls, could have vegetable gardens and vegetable gardens and some were equipped with shops and laboratories.
At the end of 1700, the qualification of municipality was removed and Vinci returned to being under the jurisdiction of Cerreto Guidi.
It is only in 1808 that Vinci returns to being a municipality, during the French domination and we have the restoration of the local administration, with the name of Mairie.
MONTALBANO: A TYPE OF CHIANTI
The production of wine in this area is well known by connoisseurs of medium-high wines but still not enough to give these places the importance they deserve also from an oenological point of view.
The hills of Montalbano are an exceptional territory for the grapes that make up the Chianti di Montalbano, a Tuscan DOCG wine, which is among the most sought after: Sangiovese (at least 75%), Canaiolo (up to 10%), Malvasia bianca and Trebbiano (together or alone up to 10%).
The organoleptic characteristics of Chianti Montalbano are typical of Chianti wines, with a ruby red color and a vinous aroma with notes of violets.
The production area includes 500 hectares of vineyards in the municipalities of Serravalle Pistoiese, Monsummano Terme, Larciano, Lamporecchio, Quarrata, Carmignano, Poggio a Caiano, Capraia e Limite, Vinci and Cerreto Guidi. with the current participation of 180 wineries.
The soil of these places is fundamental for the success of a unique and characteristic product.
In fact, only vineyards with a hilly position and suitable orientation are suitable, whose soils – located at an altitude no higher than 700 meters above sea level, are mainly made up of arenaceous, calcareous marly substrates or composed of limestone and clay, clayey schists or containing clay minerals and quartz grains, from sand and pebbles.
Vineyards located in humid soils, on valley bottoms and clay-dominated soils are to be considered unsuitable.
The traditional training methods are represented by the Guyot, its derivation called “Tuscan bow” and the spurred cordon. Any form of farming on a horizontal roof, such as a tent, is prohibited.
In winemaking, the traditional Tuscan government oenological practice is permitted, which consists of a slow refermentation of the freshly drawn wine with slightly dried grapes from the authorized vines.
All winemaking and bottling operations must be carried out in the DOCG area, but exceptions are permitted with prior authorization.
In the Montalbano area there are farmhouses, villas and accommodation facilities that can be purchased for those who like to reserve the Tuscan territory and its products for themselves and their family or to become part of the Tuscan tourist reality.
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