Potentino

Ancient origins and medieval ownership

Castello di Potentino stands on a site believed to have Etruscan foundations, in a sheltered valley where agriculture and winegrowing have continued since Etruscan times. The earliest known written reference to the castle dates from 1042, when it belonged to a Count Pietrone, also rendered as Pepone.

Over subsequent centuries, the property passed among several prominent Tuscan noble families, including the Tolomei, Bonsignori and Salimbeni. During the Salimbeni period, Contessa Bianchina and the family received Saint Catherine of Siena at the castle.

Religious and Bourbon del Monte periods

At the end of the 16th century, Potentino became a centre for the charitable work of the hospital order of Santa Maria della Scala. After this religious phase, Ferdinando I de’ Medici granted the estate to Marchese Giovan Battista Bourbon del Monte, commander-in-chief of the infantry of the Venetian Republic.

The Bourbon del Monte descendants retained the property until 1906, when they sold the castle to Antonio Hemmeler, a Swiss gentleman.

The Greene family’s route to Tuscany

The family’s connection with Tuscany began in the early 1970s through Helga Guinness, Charlotte and Alexander’s grandmother. After telling an Italian woman whom she met at a bus stop on a Greek island that she wanted a house abroad, Helga unexpectedly received a telegram saying that a deposit had been placed in her name on a ruin near the Maremma coast. She travelled to see the property and bought it. The original farmhouse was converted by architect Bruno Sacchi and was subsequently featured in Casa Vogue.

Following Helga’s death, the family sought a larger property. In 1989 they acquired the ruined Castello di Montepò at Scansano. The fortress was restored, vineyards were planted and a winery was established. Charlotte left London and lived for months above a cowshed without electricity or running water while the work progressed. She made her first commercial bottle there in 1995.

After ten years, the family concluded that Montepò—with six ruined farmhouses, about 1,000 acres and livestock including pigs, sheep, cattle and goats—was too large to manage. It was sold to Biondi Santi, and the proceeds were directed toward finding a smaller estate.

Acquisition and first vintage at Potentino

Potentino was discovered in an old guidebook. Although abandoned, dilapidated and overgrown, it was considered suitable for the family’s next project. Purchase negotiations with numerous individual owners took approximately one year, and the Greene family acquired the property in 2000.

The castle was then a wreck: parts of the roof were collapsing, doors and windows were broken, rooms were filled with bottles and mattresses, and the building had neither plumbing nor electricity. Clearing the structure alone took at least two weeks. Restoration proceeded room by room, preserving surviving colours, decorative schemes and aged surfaces wherever possible.

The winery was the first part completed, enabling the inaugural Potentino harvest and vintage in 2000. Charlotte Horton subsequently planted new vineyards, returned old olive groves to production and developed wine, grappa and olive-oil production while transforming the castle into a cultural centre and bed and breakfast.

Restoration principles and contemporary development

The restoration relied on reused, natural and locally traditional materials: terracotta, local volcanic peperino stone, chestnut wood, earth pigments, oxides and textured whitewash. Old beams were cut to face newly made doors; coach bolts and weathered hinges were preferred to visibly modern hardware; surviving patinas, crumbling paint and even cobwebbed surfaces were retained where possible.

Since 2000, Charlotte has lived and worked at Potentino while researching its history, making wine and organizing programmes with international academic institutions, a documentary festival and other cultural events. Charlotte and Alexander Greene have also organized food-and-wine pop-ups in London, Ireland and France since 2010. In 2013, Charlotte was recognized as one of Barclays’ Women of Achievement.

The estate’s conservation work later expanded through the Potentino Valley Project, created to protect the valley’s agricultural traditions, biodiversity and historic landscape. The project combines cultivation, land acquisition and restoration, ecological monitoring, education, volunteering and support for local craftsmanship. Charlotte has run the Potentino volunteer programme for 25 years, while the estate has worked with WWOOF volunteers for more than 15 years.

Location and elevation

Castello di Potentino lies at Seggiano in a secluded valley beneath Monte Amiata, between the nearby villages of Seggiano to the east and Montegiovi to the west. The estate is approximately 30 km from Montalcino, within the Montecucco DOC area and bordering the Brunello di Montalcino DOCG zone. Its vineyards stand at approximately 350 m on the slopes of Monte Amiata, Tuscany’s highest peak and an extinct volcano.

Basin topography and air movement

The low, sheltered valley has a protected, bowl-like form. This shape acts as a geological crucible: volcanic material has accumulated and blended instead of being washed away by the erosion that affected other parts of Monte Amiata.

Summer days are hot, with dry air drawn inland from the sea and coastal plains providing strong ventilation. At night, cool air descends from Monte Amiata, producing cold nights and marked diurnal temperature changes despite the vineyard’s moderate elevation. These conditions favour photosynthesis and the concentration of natural sugars while preserving the site’s high-altitude character.

Geology and soils

Monte Amiata last erupted between approximately 180,000 and 300,000 years ago. Potentino’s soil is geologically young, mineral-rich and mixed volcanic in composition. Its principal components are marly schist, calcite and quartz over a bed of metamorphic marine clay.

Water, fertility and biological life

The valley has abundant water and is locally known as La Conca d’Oro, the Golden Basin, in reference to its fertility. Its uninterrupted agricultural history has supported a continuing accumulation of soil micro-life and indigenous yeasts. Centuries-old olive trees and early examples of Sangiovese grow alongside fruit trees, wildflowers and orchids.

The absence of monoculture and industrial crop-spraying has supported a broad range of animals, birds, insects—especially bees—and plant species. Apple, pear, cherry and quince trees grow beside olive groves, including the indigenous Olivastra Seggianese. The landscape has remained substantially unaltered since medieval times.

The vines are managed by hand throughout the growing cycle and harvested manually. Green pruning limits production to 65 quintals per hectare, prioritizing fruit condition over volume. Picking is organized to prevent damage to the berries before they reach the cellar so that fermentation begins only after arrival.

The wider valley is managed as a mixed agricultural ecosystem rather than a monoculture. Repeated chemical treatments have not been applied to its soils, and there is no industrial crop-spraying. Fruit trees, ancient olive groves, woodland, pastures and wild vegetation coexist with the vineyard and support insects, birds, other wildlife and indigenous yeasts.

Conservation measures include planting apple, pear, cherry and quince trees, establishing a sacred bosco with a rare selection of indigenous trees, maintaining more than 40 beehives, installing bat boxes in the valley and olive groves, and grazing sheep and geese in the fields. The estate is also cultivating fruits and vegetables suited to the local environment, including Amiata heirloom varieties, while planting additional trees and encouraging soil micro-life.

The Potentino Valley Project is studying and documenting local flora and fauna, including rare species. Its longer-term agricultural plans include restoring newly available plots, protecting them from construction and reintroducing transumanza, the seasonal movement of sheep between lowland and mountain pasture. Charlotte Horton’s volunteer programme teaches sustainable living, agriculture and land conservation through direct work, while collaboration with WWOOF has continued for more than 15 years.

Cellar and first vintage

The winery occupies part of the restored medieval castle. It was the first section completed after the Greene family acquired Potentino, allowing the inaugural estate vintage to be harvested and made in 2000.

Fermentation and extraction

The cellar follows a minimum-intervention approach intended to preserve the grapes’ intrinsic character. Fermentations rely exclusively on wild yeasts carried on the grape skins, without industrial fermentation aids. After fermentation and racking, the skins are allowed to drain naturally rather than being pressed. This avoids extracting a portion of the harder, more obvious tannins.

Oak and maturation

Wine remains in wood for most of its cellar life. Fermentation and storage take place in large 5,000-litre French Allier oak vats. Barriques and wood chips are not used.

Clarification, filtration and additions

The wines are not fined and are not subjected to heavy filtration. Sulphites are the only additives. They are used for stability, particularly during transport, at levels described as lower than the maximum permitted for organically certified Italian wine.

Related distillation

The unpressed Pinot Noir skins used for Grappa Bianca are taken to the local Nannoni distillery immediately after svinatura. Master distiller Priscilla Occhipinti distils them within hours. This use of freely drained skins links the estate’s low-extraction winemaking practice with its grappa production.

Charlotte Horton’s philosophy begins with the idea of place as a network of relationships among climate, earth, vegetation, individual sensibility and history. She regards homogenization as a threat to the distinctions and traditions that give agricultural produce and cultural expression their character. The surviving practices of the Monte Amiata area provide her model of a living, place-based culture.

Planting decisions, vineyard husbandry, barrel choice and cellar work are considered together through what Charlotte calls the future memory of taste: the winemaker mentally projects how soil, microclimate, plant care, local identity and winemaking decisions will combine in the finished wine. She compares this process to composing music or poetry—a form of liquid writing.

Potentino presents wine as the result of a delicate symbiosis between nature and human action, founded on observation, respect, sensitivity and discipline. Mechanical and chemical cellar interventions are kept to a minimum so that the grapes can retain their essential quality. The approach favours native yeast, gentle extraction, large oak vessels, no fining and limited filtration.

The broader Potentino ethos connects agriculture and viticulture with the physical and mental ways people inhabit a place. Eating and drinking, hospitality, cultural activity, ecological care and agricultural work are treated as connected expressions of the same landscape. The Potentino Valley Project extends this idea through conservation, education, community-supported agriculture and the revival of local skills and traditions.