A Magical Vineyard Dinner in Tuscany Under the Stars and String Lights
I cannot tell a lie: I saw it on Instagram. That’s how I ended up having dinner in the middle of a vineyard in Tuscany. The image of a long table, covered with flowers, food and wine, under what seemed like a never ending trellis of fairy lights, was too good to resist.
The cost to attend was 150 euros (about $170), for apertivos, three courses and the wine pairing. Intrigued, I emailed the vineyard, Querceto di Castellina. The good news was that the price was as promised. The bad news was that the vineyard dinners were completely sold out. I was advised to sign up for the mailing list for the following year, and buy a ticket as soon as I could.
I did.
Of course, I had to get to the village where the vineyard was, Castellina in Chianti, but it was only 45 minutes outside of Florence. I booked the September 2024 dinner as a reward to myself, for what I knew was going to be a summer of hard work. And luckily, my friend Jacqui was up for turning it into a girls’ weekend.
As we approached the terrace, it felt like we’d been invited to the most exquisite wedding. People, speaking three or four different languages, milled about, all dressed up. The quartet Ragazzi Scimmia played swing-style tunes. Someone handed us glasses of wine, little nibbles went back and forth. Jacqui and I found a place to sit, sighed and smiled at each other. We had made it.
Of course, vineyard dinners aren’t new, especially in Italy, but they were often part of special occasions like weddings or required an invitation. To be able to sign yourself up for such a meal, as easily as making a restaurant reservation, is a more recent development in Tuscany.
At sunset, Mary Shea, an American who married into the Di Battista family which owns the vineyard, led us to the dining table. There were 80 of us but it felt intimate as we looked for our name cards. Each year the table decorations are made by Betty Soldi, a calligrapher and visual artist who also co-owns four hotels in the Florence area.
Dinner was cooked in an outdoor kitchen by chefs from Ristorante Albergaccio de Castellina, a local restaurant known for their lively takes on traditional Tuscan cuisine. The meal began with a ravioli filled with Tuscan pecorino, served with a purée of onions and summer truffles from Certaldo. We then moved onto a creamy pumpkin risotto with salted pistachios and lemon confit. The main course was a roasted loin of wild boar, baked potatoes and porcini mushrooms. Dessert was a trifle, or “zuppa inglese,” adorned with homemade ladyfingers, cream with a hint of vanilla and an Alchermes liqueur.
With each course, Ms. Shea’s husband, Jacopo, walked us through the vineyard’s wines. We started with their L’aura Chianti Classico, a Sangiovese named after Jacopo’s mother, then moved into their flagship Chianti and ended with their Podalirio, a certified Tuscan red made with 100 percent merlot grapes.
After dinner, we ambled back to the terrace for more music, coffee, digestives and grappa.
The dinners began 11 years ago, Ms. Shea said, when a high-end tour operator asked if they could host a small group for private dining in a vineyard. “We had actually never done anything like that before,” she said. They put a table out in the white-wine vineyard, shared a few pictures on social media and, Ms. Shea said, “got a really amazing response.”
They hosted the first public dinner in 2016, which Ms. Shea remembers as “kind of begging people to come.” The dinners now average between 80 to 90 guests and are frequently sold out. (The next one, on Aug. 8, is fully booked, but there’s still room at the Sept. 5 dinner. )
When they started, there weren’t many such events in the area, Ms. Shea said. But the idea has grown in popularity. The recently opened Auberge Collection hotel, Collegio alla Querce in Florence, offers what it calls “Il Bosco Social Table”: Every Friday and Saturday night starting in June through the end of August, people gather under the olive trees, near the pool.
The Il Bosco dinners, open to hotel guests and those not staying on site, feature tables for 16 to 34 people, cost 160 euros, including wine, and feature local musicians. Since they began, locals have joined each time, Lorenzo Maraviglia, the hotel’s general manager, said, calling it a testament to “the convivial spirit that has always been at the heart of Tuscan culture.”
For Mr. Maraviglia, who grew up in the Florence area, the dinners are also a return to his youth. “We honestly didn’t invent anything,” he said. “This is what I also experienced when I was a kid.”
He wanted to include another element from his childhood, too: a (suggested) phone-free experience. “You take your pictures,” he said. “But we have this little basket in the middle where you can put your phone in.”
Another nearby luxury hotel, Castiglion del Bosco, a Rosewood property, is also hosting what it calls “Dinner in the Vines” on Aug. 10 and 28 and on Sept. 21. The dinners, which include wine and a family style meal cooked over an open grill, take place in the Capanna vineyard at the Castiglion del Bosco winery, which is devoted to Sangiovese grapes. Each one costs 200 euros.
From Sept. 14 to 28, the hotel offers a harvest experience for 165 euros. In the morning, guests don gloves and use pruning shears to help harvest grapes. It ends with a tasting of four wines, a sommelier talk and a traditional Tuscan lunch. Castiglion hotel guests get priority booking for the dinner and harvest events.
A chance to join the treasured harvest season has proved a real draw for wine lovers who visit the region, said Nicola Megheli, the hotel’s managing director. “To let guests participate in something like this is really magic,” she said.
