Tenuta Poggetti

Spanish origins and settlement in Maremma

The Moris family left Spain and settled in the Tuscan Maremma approximately three centuries ago. Agriculture and wine became enduring family interests, and Tenuta Poggetti developed into the historic core of the family’s landholding near Massa Marittima.

Gualtier Luigi Moris and the transformation of the landscape

Gualtier Luigi Moris was born in 1911, the only son among seven siblings. He inherited Tenuta Poggetti shortly before the Second World War and left a lasting physical imprint on its 423 ha landscape.

The estate’s cypress planting dates to 1937. Gualtier propagated more than 3,600 trees from the seeds of a single “mother cypress” and planted them beside the estate roads. The plantings include a cross visible from the main terrace and a carefully calculated semicircle at the summit of Poggio dell’Avvoltore, the estate’s highest hill. The hill’s silhouette subsequently became a secondary Morisfarms emblem and a landmark visible throughout the surrounding area.

Gualtier wanted his six children and fourteen grandchildren to preserve Poggetti with the care given to a garden. His grandchildren Giulio Parentini and Ranieri Moris now carry that responsibility as the estate’s managers.

The shift from mixed farming to quality-focused viticulture

Adolfo Parentini joined the Moris family through marriage in 1977. He recognized the viticultural potential of its land, exposure and microclimate and promoted a major change in direction: new vineyard investment, unfamiliar techniques and a gradual shift in emphasis from general agriculture toward quality winegrowing.

Green harvesting was initially controversial. Gualtier wrote that Adolfo was discarding too many grapes, reflecting a culture in which an abundant crop was considered intrinsically desirable. Within four or five years, however, the vineyard workers themselves were identifying excessive crops and asking for a second green harvest. This change marked the adoption of deliberate yield control as part of the family’s quality policy.

Adolfo created Avvoltore from grapes grown on Poggio dell’Avvoltore. Its first vintage was 1988. Beginning with the second vintage, in 1990, the label carried Gualtier Luigi Moris’s signature as a public sign of approval for his son-in-law’s work. The wine has been bottled only in vintages considered suitable: production was omitted in the rain-affected 1996 and 2014 seasons and after hail problems in 2008.

Memorial to Gualtier Luigi Moris

Gualtier died in 2001. A large rock uncovered while preparing the ground for a new vineyard was raised in his memory on Poggio dell’Avvoltore, overlooking the Gulf of Follonica. A plaque bears one of his cherished maxims: a person who has planted even one tree has not lived in vain. His children planted a single cypress beside the memorial in a place where the family had enjoyed Sunday picnics during their childhood. The memorial remains accessible from the estate roads.

The present generation

Giulio Parentini formally entered the family company in 2001 after growing up around its customers and wine shops. Working beside his father, Adolfo Parentini, he learned land management, production and commercial development. He later became active in international promotion and in long-term projects designed to open the family estates and products to visitors.

Francesco Moris and his wife, Gloria Pisaneschi, developed Poggetti’s hospitality activity by restoring traditional farmhouses. Their largest project, the Santa Laura complex, was completed in 2007 and converted into ten furnished apartments overlooking vineyards and olive groves.

Ranieri Moris began working alongside his uncle Adolfo in 2008. He combined an interest in traditional Maremman farming with an openness to innovation and later served as president of the Viticulture Section of the Agricultural Confederation of the Province of Grosseto and as a director of the Morellino di Scansano consortium.

Giulio and Ranieri now manage the estate together. They have expanded the family portfolio across white, rosé and red wines, with particular attention to grape varieties associated with the Tuscan coast. Their period of management has included the first Rosamundi vintage in 2012, the production of Barbaspinosa under Maremma Toscana Rosso DOC from 2015 and the first AMOR vintage in 2019.

In July 2021, Poggetti’s farm shop evolved into Terrazza Moris, realizing Gualtier’s unfinished idea for a place where visitors could taste wine and local food while looking over the Tuscan countryside, coast, Elba and Montecristo. More recent diversification has included pasta made with durum wheat grown partly at Poggetti and, in 2024, an artisanal Tuscan London Dry Gin inspired by the aromas and setting of Terrazza Moris.