History
An inheritance dating to 1385
The historical narrative behind Antinori nel Chianti Classico begins in 1385, the date from which the Antinori family traces its activity as vintners. The winery was conceived as a physical expression of this long relationship with Chianti Classico and as a place where the family’s past, present and future could be presented together.
The family’s parallel relationship with the arts also extends back centuries. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Niccolò di Tommaso Antinori commissioned Florentine sculptor and ceramic artist Giovanni della Robbia to create the glazed-terracotta lunette depicting the Resurrection of Christ. The family crest likewise emerged from della Robbia’s Florentine workshop in the early 1500s. These works became part of a tradition in which art was used to record and communicate the family’s identity and values.
The new winery and its inauguration in 2012
The new Antinori nel Chianti Classico winery was inaugurated on 25 October 2012. It marked the first occasion in 26 generations on which the family opened a new winery deliberately conceived not only for production but also for receiving wine enthusiasts and introducing them to its approach to wine, art and architecture.
The building was made entirely with locally sourced materials and designed to respect the Tuscan landscape. Its production spaces were organized for gravity-flow vinification, while the structure itself uses natural conditions to maintain the climate needed for winemaking and maturation. The winery’s low-impact, energy-saving design embeds most of the building in the hill: from outside, its principal visible elements are two long horizontal openings across the slope. A vineyard covers and surrounds the roof, and a monumental spiral staircase links the building’s three levels.
The inauguration also prompted a new interpretation of the historic Villa Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva. The family connected the new Riserva with a label first created by Marchese Niccolò Antinori in 1928, framing it as an expression of continuity, experimentation and evolution.
Antinori Art Project
The Antinori Art Project was founded in 2012, concurrently with the winery’s inauguration. It extended the family’s collecting tradition into contemporary art through commissioned works, temporary exhibitions, installations and seminars. Exhibitions curated by Chiara Parisi in 2012 and 2013 involved Yona Friedman, Rosa Barba and Jean-Baptiste Decavèle.
In 2014, Ilaria Bonacossa became artistic director. Tomás Saraceno’s Biosphere 06, Cluster of 3 was installed in the vertical space of the winery’s internal stairwell. In 2015, the exhibition Still Life Remix explored the still-life tradition and included Giorgio Andreotta Calò’s installation Clessidra.
In 2016, the project acquired Nicolas Party’s location-specific work Giant Fruit. It also commissioned sculptor Jorge Peris to create Portal del Angel, a deliberately precarious triumphal arch assembled from reclaimed local materials, including old terracotta vessels historically used to store oil.
In 2017, Stefano Arienti was commissioned to create a work in dialogue with Giovanni della Robbia’s Resurrection of Christ. The Renaissance lunette, owned by the Brooklyn Museum and known to art historians as the “Antinori Lunette,” returned to Florence for the first time in 500 years after undergoing conservation in the United States with Antinori family support. The resulting exhibition, From Brooklyn to the Bargello: The Antinori Lunette, Giovanni della Robbia and Stefano Arienti, ran at Florence’s Bargello National Museum from 9 November 2017 to 8 April 2018.
Production development and international recognition
Beginning with the 2013 vintage, part of the Pèppoli harvest was vinified in the Antinori nel Chianti Classico cellars. This linked the new facility operationally with an Antinori Chianti Classico first produced in 1985, while Pèppoli remained the wine of its own historic estate.
In 2022, Antinori nel Chianti Classico placed first in the World’s Best Vineyards ranking. The international wine-tourism ranking was decided by more than 500 wine and tourism specialists.
Terroir
Antinori nel Chianti Classico stands in Loc. Bargino, within the commune of San Casciano Val di Pesa in the province of Florence. Its coordinates are 43°36′43.30″ N, 11°11′29.76″ E.
The building opens toward the Chianti Classico countryside through a terrace surrounded by vines. The rooftop restaurant and visitor areas look across gently rolling Tuscan hills marked by vineyards, olive groves and historic churches. The winery is inserted into the hillside rather than standing above it, allowing the planted roof and surrounding landscape to remain the dominant visual elements.
The vineyard around and above the winery is centered on Sangiovese. It also contains varieties historically associated with it locally—Canaiolo, Ciliegiolo, Colorino, Malvasia Nera and Mammolo—alongside a smaller planting of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.
Winemaking
Cellar design
The winery was designed around gravity-flow vinification, reducing the need to move grapes, must and wine mechanically between stages. Production is distributed across three levels connected by the central spiral staircase.
Most of the building is embedded in the hill. Its architecture uses natural conditions to provide the climate required for winemaking, maturation and storage, while the low-impact design aims to reduce energy consumption. The structure includes dedicated production areas, a barrique cellar, barrel cellars and an area for maturation in large casks.
Production documented at Bargino
Part of the Pèppoli harvest has been vinified here since the 2013 vintage. The facility also provides the production context for the family’s reinterpretation of Villa Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva following the 2012 inauguration.
For the current Villa Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva process, freshly harvested grapes are destemmed and gently crushed before entering stainless-steel vats. Alcoholic fermentation takes place at a controlled 28–30 °C. Skin contact lasts approximately 10–14 days, with controlled mechanical operations used to manage the extraction of aromas, structure and supple tannins. Sangiovese completes malolactic fermentation in stainless steel, while some complementary-variety lots undergo it in second- and third-fill barriques. After blending, the wine matures predominantly in large oak barrels, with a smaller portion in barriques.
These specifications describe Villa Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva rather than a universal protocol for every wine handled by the facility.
Philosophy
Antinori nel Chianti Classico was conceived as a meeting point between tradition and innovation: a contemporary production facility that presents six centuries of family history while accommodating modern winemaking and public hospitality.
The family defines its production philosophy through passion, patience and the continual pursuit of higher quality. The new winery’s interpretation of Villa Antinori reflects the same balance: experimentation and evolution on one side, historical continuity on the other.
Architect Marco Casamonti described the building as both a quiet, almost ritual space devoted to wine and a working production facility required to meet precise quality standards. This dual purpose shaped the winery’s understated exterior, gravity-based internal organization and visitor route through active production spaces.
Environmental restraint is expressed principally through the building itself: locally sourced construction materials, integration into the hillside, natural temperature management and an energy-saving design intended to preserve the surrounding Tuscan landscape.
The winery also treats art as part of the visitor’s sensory encounter with wine. The Accademia Antinori preserves and promotes art connected with Tuscan culture and winemaking traditions, while the Antinori Art Project commissions and exhibits contemporary work within the winery.