Once upon a time, there was a little girl with ringlets and green eyes, who loved to run with her dog in the fields behind the house, and dreamed of never leaving this fairytale...

After her sister, married to a doctor from Siena, she came on holiday to Tuscany every year, until she was grown up; she came with her Franco as well.
He was a bank manager with a passion for horses and cooking, she was a teacher, who loved history and unspoiled nature.
Life, says Umberta, brought us to the Orgiaglia Estate.

We fell in love with this magical land which we have passionately and enthusiastically stirred according to the criteria of organic farming.
We believed that it should be left as it was: no cultivation, intensive harvests using chemical fertilizers and pesticides, but respecting the land as in the past, with typical local plants: olives, sunflowers, wheat, spelt and barley.

In fact, Orgiaglia means “Land of Barley” and has always been resided in and cultivated on the basis of the quality of the land.
These 100 hectares have remained so uncontaminated that the Italian Association for Organic Farming (Aiab) has awarded it the 4 star certificate: by increasing the olive groves we have set in place the project to produce excellent extra-virgin olive oil directly from our oil mill, “The Olive House”.

It’s wonderful to discover the traces of animals along the tracks and in the natural reserve of Berignone: following the itinerary of the two castles, you reach the ruins of Torraccia dei Vescovi (800 AD) where gold and silver coins were forged by hand, before coming to the Luppiano castle, built in 1200 on Etruscan foundations.

The house of Orgiaglia, from 1600, was the country villa of the lords of the castle: we have restored it, maintaining the original architecture, with stone walls, wooden beams. It looks onto a splendid amphitheatre of hills: when you look at them, you will be filled with a sense of tranquillity of an earthly paradise and you will want to stay there, enjoying the fresh breeze of the sea and the scented air from the oak, pine and acacia woods.

The same emotion which the first arrivals experienced when they came, initially out of curiosity and then decided to stay, fascinated, so much so as to ask for food and lodging for themselves and for their friends to whom they had spoken about this experience.
The glass of red wine and bread and salami which Franco offered 20 years ago with warm hospitality, has transformed over the years into a flask of genuine Chianti and many wonderful recipes which were taught directly to him by two old restaurateurs from Volterra, following the best Tuscan traditions.

And here we are, “pioneers of agritourism”, still here in the new millennium, welcoming old friends and new, coming from all round the world to find the same simple and familiar atmosphere as always.
Umberta and Franco will welcome you.