Fattoria dei Barbi

Fattoria dei Barbi has been owned by the Colombini family for practically always: it is an ancient and important Sienese family that has held government positions in the territory since the year 1200. The arrival in Montalcino dates back to the year 1352. Between ups and downs, since then, the family will always be present in the Ilcinese area. In 1560 Cosimo Colombini was Podestà of Montalcino, a position held again by Giovanni Colombini 470 years later. Pio Colombini produces the first bottles of Brunello, some still in the cellar today. With Giovanni Colombini, born in 1906, the family found an innovator, a pioneer of viticulture: he owned the first Italian public wine shop, built in 1938 in the Montalcino fortress which he restored as the Podestà of the time; In the 1930s he was responsible for the first mail order sale of Tuscan wine and the first exports of Brunello to all the most important markets in the world. The opening of the Cantina dei Barbi to the public in the 1950s was one of the birth certificates of what would become wine tourism. After the death of Giovanni Colombini in 1976, the Barbi farm was led by his daughter Francesca and then by his grandson Stefano, who in turn developed and extended the family properties, thus continuing a great tradition. Fattoria dei Barbi extends for 306 hectares, divided between the historic company in Montalcino and the recent one in Scansano, in Maremma, purchased in 1997 by Stefano Cinelli Colombini, convinced that a Morellino could have been the ideal completion to the range of products of the Barbi Farm. Today the cellar produces a total of around 800,000 bottles in the name of tradition and quality.