Tenuta Villa Cusona

Origins and medieval wine history

Cusona’s documented history begins in 994, the date of the earliest surviving testimony to the estate’s existence. Winegrowing and winemaking are presented as having continued at Cusona for more than a millennium. Vernaccia was first produced at the estate in 1200. The wider history of Vernaccia di San Gimignano is documented in the municipal Ordinances of 1276 and in the writings of Dante and Boccaccio.

The Guicciardini and Strozzi families became prominent in Tuscan, Italian and European political and economic life. The Strozzi were bankers, statesmen and military commanders as well as rivals of the Medici. After their exile from Florence, they developed their fortunes in Naples and Rome. Filippo Strozzi subsequently returned and commissioned Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. Piero Strozzi became Marshal of France and commanded French forces; his bust is displayed in the Gallery of Battles at Versailles.

Francesco Guicciardini was a politician, Governor of the Papal States, philosopher and historian. Niccolò Machiavelli began his political career as his secretary. Guicciardini’s Storia d’Italia covers the events of 1494–1532 and is presented as anticipating the idea of Italian unity.

The historic agricultural complex

The Fattoria Guicciardini building complex originated in the second half of the fifteenth century, when San Gimignano’s second circuit of walls—originally built around 1260—was enlarged to include the Church and Convent of Sant’Agostino, institutions that had become important to the local community. The complex subsequently passed through numerous uses and transformations, including dwellings and workshops.

From the eighteenth century until the 1950s, it functioned as an agricultural fattoria. Its premises included granaries, vat rooms, stables, a carpenter’s workshop and an olive mill on the ground floor. It was initially owned by the Strozzi family and entered the Guicciardini family as the dowry of Princess Luisa Strozzi upon her 1877 marriage to Count Francesco Guicciardini, who already owned the Cusona farm. At that time the agricultural operation comprised approximately fifteen farms around San Gimignano and extensive woodland.

Construction of a cellar with underground galleries began in 1850 under Francesco Guicciardini. In the early twentieth century he developed Cusona into a nationally significant model of progressive agricultural management. He served as Mayor of Florence and as Minister of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs between 1906 and 1909.

Family connections and cultural heritage

During the seventeenth century, descendants of the Guicciardini Strozzi family married into the Marlborough family in London, establishing a family connection with the lineage of Sir Winston Churchill. The family also traces its ancestry to Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the subject known as Monna Lisa or La Gioconda; the contemporary family members are described as her fifteenth-generation descendants.

Vernaccia appears repeatedly in the estate’s cultural history. Cusona’s accounts record the dispatch of twenty flasks as a gift to Lorenzo de’ Medici. Lorenzo subsequently wrote to the Florentine ambassador in Rome about sending additional Vernaccia to the Pope if the first sample proved pleasing. Dante referred to Vernaccia in Purgatorio, while Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger described both San Gimignano and its wine in L’Aione in 1643. Boccaccio is also associated with the wine in the estate’s historical narrative.

Bottling, appellation recognition and international development

In 1933, Count Piero Guicciardini carried out the first bottling of the estate’s Vernaccia in a Bordeaux-shaped bottle. The original bottle and label later became the visual model for the Cusona 1933 presentation.

Vernaccia di San Gimignano became Italy’s first DOC in 1966. Girolamo Guicciardini Strozzi was among the signatories to the application for recognition. He helped found the Consorzio della Vernaccia in 1972, became its first president and served continuously until 1987, then again from 1993 to 2000. During the 1970s, he also began the international commercialization of the family’s wines, working with his wife Irina and their daughters Natalia and Irina.

Prince Strozzi created Cusona Brut during the 1980s. Sòdole entered production in 1983, taking its name from the eponymous farm within the Cusona estate. Vernaccia di San Gimignano became the first Italian white wine to receive DOCG recognition in 1993. Millanni debuted with the 1994 vintage, marking Cusona’s thousandth anniversary through both its name and its release.

In 1998, the family expanded its wine activity beyond Cusona into Bolgheri, Scansano and Montemassi in the Tuscan Maremma and into Pantelleria. These projects remained distinct from Tenuta Villa Cusona.

The contemporary generation

By 2014, Irina Guicciardini Strozzi had made the family business her full-time occupation, concentrating on export markets. In 2019, after professional experience at the European Commission, J.P. Morgan and KPMG and studies in business economics, administration, finance and control at Bocconi University, she was elected President of the Consorzio del Vino Vernaccia di San Gimignano for a term extending through 2022. Her election continued the family’s formal role in the denomination previously established by her father Girolamo.

The estate remains based at Località Cusona in San Gimignano. Its contemporary wine project is centred on preserving the historical identity of Vernaccia di San Gimignano while developing vineyard and cellar work toward greater precision and quality.

Grapes are harvested by hand and carefully selected. Selection begins in the vineyard for certain estate production, while fruit destined for the Vernaccia sparkling wine is picked early to retain freshness. Vernaccia used for the estate’s San Gimignano wines is grown within the Municipality of San Gimignano.

No specific certification, organic or biodynamic status, soil-management regime, cover-crop programme, pruning method, disease-control protocol, irrigation practice, planting density, yield, harvest-date policy for the full estate, or biodiversity programme for the vineyards is identified.

Vinification and maturation take place in Cusona’s historic winery, while bottling and storage are carried out in a newer facility. The historic cellar includes underground galleries whose construction began in 1850 and centuries-old vaults that remain part of the estate’s production and ageing environment.

The general cellar repertoire includes concrete vats, stainless-steel tanks and steel pressure tanks, with controlled-temperature fermentation where appropriate. Oak barrels and bottle ageing are housed in the historic cellars. The principal Vernaccia is fermented in stainless steel under temperature control. Other estate methods include cold maceration for Vernaccia Riserva; long-Charmat prise de mousse with extended lees contact in pressure tanks for Cusona Brut; skin maceration in concrete for Sangiovese-based wines; long skin maceration followed by French-oak-barrique and bottle maturation for selected Sangiovese; and partial barrique maturation for selected Vernaccia.

Hand harvesting and careful grape selection precede cellar processing. Individual lots may also incorporate early picking, limited grape withering, early bottling to preserve varietal freshness, prolonged bottle ageing, or ageing without wood, depending on the intended expression.