From the Etruscans to the Maritime Republics from feud to winery: the epic of Castello del Terriccio

Not all the realities of the Italian agricultural world can boast a history that goes from the Etruscans who dominated the land of Maremma, committed to viticulture alongside mining, to the Maritime Republics, when the castle that stands on the highest hill – and gives its name to the estate – was an outpost of Pisa, strategic in sighting the arrival of Saracen ships in the Tyrrhenian Sea; that, from the Middle Ages, when the estate was granted by the Roman Church to the Gaetani Counts who made it a real feud, the “Contea del Terriccio”, for five long centuries until the abolition of feudalism itself, through the “Century of Enlightenment” and the nineteenth century with the new owners, the Polish princes Poniatowski who built the cellar; and that, from the first post-war period, finally arrives to our days, in a century of ownership of the same family, the Marquises Serafini Ferri. It is the “epic” of Castello del Terriccio, one of the largest estates in Tuscany and Italy, a few steps from Bolgheri, retraced by the family to which it has been linked for 100 years (1921-2021) and to which belongs the current owner, Vittorio Piozzo di Rosignano Rossi di Medelana, grandson of Cavalier Gian Annibale to whom it owes its notoriety in the world of wine (with the oenologist Carlo Ferrini), thanks to wines such as Lupicaia, Castello del Terriccio and Tassinaia. But not all the realities can also boast 1,500 hectares, studded with farms and between vineyards (today with new farmhouses in recovery and the planting of new hectares), olive groves with 10,000 plants of fine varieties, breeding in the wild of Limousine cattle and record cereal production in Europe, next to forests of Turkey oaks, oaks, holm oaks, eucalyptus and Mediterranean scrub, many streams and a lake.