Italy means different things to different people. Tuscany, Leonardo da Vinci, Chianti, olive oil, cooking lessons, the Etruscans, the Medicis, UNESCO World Heritage sites, and medieval villages may spring to mind first for certain il bel paese enthusiasts. Tenuta di Artimino, which sprawls over 700 hectares within Tuscany’s undulating Cypress-fringed landscape, boasts all of the above. In addition, there’s a four-star hotel, a luxe spa, a paradisiacal pool, and superb food. It’s a welcome reprieve from the tourist-laden hillside towns of, say, San Gimignano. And if you find yourself itching for a city fix, Florence is just 45 minutes away.
The Medicis, Leonardo da Vinci, and UNESCO
Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici happened upon a hilltop in the hamlet of Artiminio during a hunting trip. Taken with the surroundings, he enlisted architect Bernardo Buontalenti to design a hunting villa on the property. Work began in 1596, and it took four years to complete what came to be called La Ferdinanda aka the villa of the hundred chimneys–it’s impossible to miss the 57 shafts protruding from the rooftop. Once upon a time, there were even more, but, alas, they didn’t withstand the test of time.
What the villa’s interior lacks in furnishings, it makes up for in fresco-rich walls and ceilings painted by Domenico Passignano and Bernardino Poccetti. The wine cellar’s vast collection displays dusty bottles with timeworn labels like Artiminio Vin Ruspo 1973 and Artimino Chianti 1981, and the cooking quarter boasts a chicken rotisserie crafted according to a Leonardo da Vinci design. The villa isn’t without renown– it’s one of 14 properties comprising the Medici Gardens and Villas UNESCO World Heritage site. Make sure to book a tour–there’s something so gloriously regal about traversing the dramatic bifurcated staircase that leads to the main entrance.
The Hotel
The four-star hotel, part of the Melia collection, comprises 102 accommodations sprawled between the central property and 59 and six apartments, respectively, in the borgo (the medieval village) and its neighboring Le Fagianaie lodge. La Ferdinanda’s stable and servant quarters were revamped into 32 exquisite rooms featuring original fixtures like wooden beams juxtaposed with stone fireplaces and terracotta floors.
Cooking classes and dining
What better place to hone your fresh pasta-making talent than Italy? Perhaps, more precisely, under the tutelage of Michela Bottasso, the Piedmontese chef who oversees Biagio Pignatta. The excellent restaurant, known for cuisine that couples tradition with innovation, occupies one of the property’s original structures and is named for the Medici family butler.
Cooking classes are offered downstairs in a room with windowed walls overlooking a quintessential dreamy Tuscan landscape. A long table draped in a white tablecloth was topped with wood pastry boards fastened with steel pasta makers, digital food scales, steel bowls, white ceramic bowls, and pasta-making essentials like standard and semolina flours, eggs, dough cutters, and small wooden rolling pins. I slipped a burgundy apron over my head and fastened the ties at my waist. This wasn’t my first homemade pasta rodeo, by any means, but I’m self-taught, so I was eager to get at it under an expert’s watchful eye.
Bottasso demonstrated the ins and outs of kneading, then I followed suit, rolling the dough out before cranking it through the machine about a half dozen times to achieve the appropriate length and thinness. Then, I cranked the dough sheet through the appropriate pasta attachment for cuts like tagliatelle and spaghetti.
Tuscan cantucci, crunchy twice-baked cookies traditionally served alongside vin santo, a sweet wine, were up next. Have to say, they were much less intimidating than I thought, requiring just flour, eggs, vanilla flavoring, almonds, and lemon and orange rinds.
I got to enjoy the fruit of my labor at dinner—following a starter of delightful fried zucchini flowers in a delicately crispy batter. The pasta was served sampler-style—tagliatelle al ragù and spaghetti al pomodoro with some trofie al pesto thrown in for good measure. (Liguria wasn’t that far away, after all.) Dessert was all about the cantucci.
Wine Tasting
Vines comprise eighty of the estate’s 732 hectares, and Sangiovese, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon are the dominant varieties. Artimino, which produces 420,000 bottles of wine annually, straddles two hilly wine zones separated by the Arno River: Carmignano DOCG and the Montalbano region of Chianti DOCG. Needless to say, when at Tenuta di Artimino, a wine tasting is a must. Mine comprised the following wines:
Artumes Bianco Toscana was a light yellow blend of Trebbiano and Petit Manseng. Vibrant, flowery, the wine had notes of peach, melons, and lemon.
Chianti Montalbano was a blend of hand-harvested Sangiovese grapes with Canaiolo and Colorino. The silky stainless-steel-aged wine packed deep flavors of cherries and plums and pleasant tannins that didn’t overwhelm.
Poggilarco 2018 Carmignano was a full-bodied blend of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot. The vivid wine was replete with bright cherries, red currant, black pepper, nutmeg, and a touch of vanilla from the Slovenian oak. The wine had both a freshness and pronounced, though pleasant tannins.
Grumarello Carmignano Riserva 2016 – This blend of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc was floral (roses and violets), fruity (plums and blackberries), and undercut with some oaky vanilla notes. Robust and persistent, the wine earned tre bicchieri (three glasses), the highest rating possible from the prestigious Gambero Rosso Guide.
Borgo of Artimino
The medieval borgo of Artimino is about a ten-minute stroll–and an even swifter bike ride–from the tenuta’s central hub. The leafy tree-lined roadway is surrounded by a rolling green landscape studded with 18,000 olive trees–the source of the estate’s extra-virgin olive oil. The quaint town has bars, restaurants, and small shops, including a pharmacy (super convenient to have so close to the home base). The village, whose population doesn’t exceed 100 people, is far removed from the heavily trodden hillside towns of, say, San Gimignano and Montepulciano, and really captures the essence of small-town Tuscany at its purest. In addition to the above-mentioned apartments, the hotel’s spa, along with an impressive archeological museum, lies on this side of the hamlet.
Spa
This 600-square-meter oasis is equipped with a Finnish sauna, Turkish bath with a self-scrub, sensory shower, ice fountain, Scottish shower, water zone, large hot tub, chromotherapy showers, fitness area, hydro massage pool, and a relaxing area to sip herbal tea. Hotel guests get two hours of daily free access to the wellness area (reservations required). The spa’s customized massages and rejuvenating detox treatments incorporate natural ingredients that exemplify the territory, like grape polyphenols and an olive oil body scrub,
Archeological Museum, Pre-history, and the Etruscans
The village is built on ancient Etruscan settlements dating back to the 7th century BC, and this museum dedicated to the ancient civilization opened in 1983 in La Ferdinanda’s basement; it moved to its current location inside former wine cellars in 2011. The collection displays items from 50 years of research from the Etruscan center of Artimino and its territory through the artifacts found during fifty years of study. It houses extraordinary burial objects recovered from the necropolis and items from the Etruscan nuclei of Artimino and Pietramarina.
