Trerose

Ancient routes and Roman-era evidence

Archaeological finds, surviving structures and documents place the farm’s existence as far back as the Roman period. The estate occupied a strategic position between two historic transport routes: the Via Lauretana and the Canale Maestro della Chiana. The canal was navigable from the 3rd century BCE, carrying water from the Tiber system toward the Arno. The Via Lauretana was constructed around 125 BCE to connect Siena with Cortona before joining the Via Cassia. These routes remained important during the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.

Physical evidence survives in the park before Villa Trerose. It includes part of a Roman milestone that once recorded the distance from Rome, together with later stone road markers designed by the architect Manetti under the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1810.

Jacopo Vagnucci and the name Trerose

The estate’s name and emblem derive from the family arms of Jacopo Vagnucci (1416–1487), an influential bishop who owned the surrounding lands and farms. His heraldic device depicted a crowned, rampant bear holding three roses—one red, one white and one green—in one paw. The three roses became the estate’s name and central visual symbol.

The Renaissance villa

The estate’s sixteenth-century well was designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Elder. Its composition followed the model of the Pozzo dei Grifi e dei Leoni in Piazza Grande, Montepulciano. The lion’s head surrounding the heraldic elements of the Trerose mark also takes inspiration from that monument.

Villa Trerose was erected in 1521 at the centre of the five-hill property. Cardinal Silvio Passerini (1469–1529) commissioned it when he became Bishop of Cortona. Its position between Valiano, Cortona and Lake Trasimeno stood close to the historical frontier separating the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from the Papal States. Passerini was also an intellectual associated with the Medici court and a patron of Giorgio Vasari, who discussed him in Le Vite.

The villa’s subterranean rooms preserve the Passo del Cardinale, a concealed passage traditionally associated with Passerini. It led from the building toward Umbria and provided an unobtrusive escape route during periods of tension between the Grand Duchy and the Papal States.

Sacred landscape and agricultural tradition

The presence of prominent churchmen left a religious imprint across Trerose. Tabernacles, small churches and devotional images are distributed through the property. They are linked to figures including Santa Margherita da Cortona, who lived here, and Santa Caterina d’Alessandria, whose image is preserved in a shrine and whose name was given to one of the estate’s hills.

Santa Caterina is traditionally venerated by farmers and livestock keepers because she was martyred after opposing animal sacrifice during pagan festivities. Her feast on 25 November coincides with celebrations marking the completion of the grape and olive harvests. Trerose perpetuates this relationship between religion and agriculture through the Santa Caterina vineyard.

The contemporary vineyard project

The modern estate is organised across five vineyard hills—I Palazzi, Belvedere, Lodola, Poggetto and Santa Caterina—surrounding the villa. The vineyard rows follow the contours of the hills in an amphitheatre pattern, a planting design intended to respect the landscape while using its varied exposures and soils.

A precision-viticulture programme introduced georeferencing, satellite monitoring of individual vineyard sections and digital applications for optimising vineyard management and grape quality. This work is combined with integrated pest management, a natural and sustainable viticultural approach and minimalist winemaking. In the cellar, technology suited to separate vineyard selections operates alongside traditional vinification methods; an underground barrel room accommodates vessels of several materials and sizes.

Tenuta Trerose lies in the southeastern part of the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano denomination, toward Umbria and Lake Trasimeno. Its 200 ha extend across five hills, with a landscape alternating among vineyards, olive groves and arable fields. The 103 ha of vines occupy the higher portions of the hills.

The estate’s geological history reaches back to the Quaternary, when the area consisted of water-filled valleys in a hot, dry savannah environment with mixed scrub. Fossils of hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, elephants and mammoths have been discovered locally. A complete mammoth was uncovered while ground was being prepared in the vineyard opposite the cellar; the finds are preserved in the Museo di Farneta.

As the valleys dried over millennia, their sandstone-derived sands and saline clays acquired deposits of silt. These three components—sand, clay and silt—occur in different combinations across the five hills. More specific vineyard contexts include clay-limestone soils at Pieve Valiano, sand and saline clay on Santa Caterina, marine-origin mixtures of sand, silt and saline clay, sandy and silty-clay soils, and calcium-carbonate-rich clay associated with Colle I Palazzi.

The cold continental climate of inland Tuscany meets the moderating influence of Lake Trasimeno. This interaction creates a distinctive microclimate in which the local Prugnolo Gentile biotype of Sangiovese ripens comparatively late. Variations in soil and exposure across the amphitheatre-shaped vineyards provide materially different conditions for individual grape selections.

The vineyard strategy centres on Sangiovese in its local Prugnolo Gentile form, which occupies almost all of the estate’s 103 vineyard hectares. Rather than treating the property as a uniform block, management works with the different soils, climates and exposures of five hills and maintains separate grape selections.

Rows are oriented according to the contours of the hills, producing the estate’s characteristic amphitheatre arrangement. The planting design is intended to integrate viticulture with the landscape while giving vines access to the site’s diverse exposures and soil combinations.

Precision viticulture combines georeferencing with satellite monitoring of individual vineyard sections. Digital applications support decisions intended to optimise vineyard management and grape quality. The programme is paired with integrated pest management and an approach characterised as natural and sustainable.

Documented training systems include spurred cordon and Guyot. Planting densities are generally 5,000 vines/ha, rising to 5,200 vines/ha for the Pieve Valiano selection. Published examples give yields from 55 to 90 quintals/ha and average vine ages from 10 to 25 years.

The cellar is conceived around simplicity and linear workflows, with its equipment serving both the fruit and the people working there. The vinification area is designed to preserve the identity of multiple vineyard selections. Modern systems can be alternated with traditional techniques, while the broader approach is described as minimalist winemaking.

The underground barrel room contains vessels in several formats. These include 100 hl vats, 30, 40 and 50 hl casks, and 300 L barriques, selected according to the needs of each vineyard lot. Elsewhere in the range, the cellar’s documented equipment and techniques include stainless-steel fermentation, controlled-temperature maceration, cold maceration, délestage, pumping over, concrete tanks, Slavonian oak casks, French oak vats, mixed oak-and-chestnut vessels and small 100 L casks.

Documented red-wine protocols demonstrate macerations from 10 to 30 days, with temperature regimes ranging from 18–28°C, 20–30°C, a maximum of 27°C, or a controlled 30°C according to the selection. Ageing options encompass large wood, concrete and bottle maturation. For dried-grape production, Malvasia Bianca is laid on racks for approximately four months before pressing and prolonged maturation in small casks.