MONTALCINO, Italy — Finally connected with my driver this morning. We left Florence shortly after 8 a.m. and arrived here before 10:30. Not bad considering it rained off and on all the way.
I had three winery appointments today, the first at Col d’Orcia (it’s on the hill, or Col, that overlooks the Orcia river) followed by stops at Poggio Antico and Il Poggione.
Poggio Antico is especially interesting because it has a phenomenal restaurant (owned independently) on the estate. I don’t use the term phenomenal lightly. Chef Roberto Minetti had a Michelin-starred restaurant in Rome before moving his family and career to Montalcino more than a decade ago.
He quickly earned a star in Montalcino (since lost) and gained renown for operating the best restaurant in the region. Poggio Antico has since been eclipsed by the superb restaurant at Castello Banfi (with one Michelin star) but it was clearly a ground-breaking restaurant when it opened and continues to turn out inspired dishes to this day.
Paola Gloder, the proprietor of the winery with the same name, has never regretted recruiting the talented Minetti to open shop in Montalcino.
“Roberto has a wonderful imagination and creates dishes that are international in origin but with a Tuscan twist,” said Gloder. “He was originally from Tuscany, you know.”
Gloder admits her decision to make her own Poggio Antico the only Brunello di Montalcino on the wine list has perhaps hurt the restaurant with the Michelin Guide, which prizes depth in a wine list. There has been some criticism that there aren’t more Brunellos, though you can find wines from the rest of Italy.
“What do you do?” she said, “If you put some Brunellos on the list and not others, you only make friends and enemies. And we can’t possibly have 200 Brunellos listed. So it is just us, and the other wines from outside this region.”
If you’re a Brunello fan, don’t let the absense of many of Montalcino’s best deter you from trying the Poggio Antico restaurant. The Poggio Antico Brunello is top drawer, and you can always dress it up with something dazzling from the kitchen of Roberto Minetti, one of Tuscany’s genuine culinary stars.
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