Our Story
A love affair which became the adventure of a lifetime
Boy meets girl, they fall in love, they quit their day jobs, find an abandoned farming estate outside of Florence and set out to bring it back to life. The following twenty plus years became the never ending project of building Poggio La Noce, the adventure of a lifetime!
Our Story
The Poggio la Noce Estate
What had started as an abandoned property in the hills of Fiesole, close to Florence, became a small family run wine estate, with two vineyards on the property, a third one South of Florence (in the Chianti Classico area, Montefiridolfi), and a fourth one in Campania close to Naples.
The property now has a new modern winery, fully integrated into the hillside, which makes it especially energy efficient. The team of young men and women working at Poggio La Noce, 8 in total, are like family and the ethos is all about producing honest genuine wines that speak to their sense of place. The farming has always been fully organic with many practices biodynamic too, but that philosophy of nurturing the nature around us transcends the caring for the plants and encompasses our entire little ecosystem on this hillside and valley, and reaches to our relationships with those we work with.
Our mission to produce genuine beautiful wines on a human scale in the end has become an entire way of life. We hope that all those sipping on a glass of any of our wines may simply enjoy and share the love!
Our Philosophy
Tending each vine by hand
Our work begins in the vineyard, where we tend to each vine individually by hand. From the start we set out to farm organically following a series of practices; using green manure to fertilize the vines (growing leguminous and other plants to mulch them back into the ground), following the lunar calendar for the various operations in the vineyard and in the cellar and fermenting only with indigenous yeasts.
During harvest, the grapes are handpicked and carried back to the winery, where both clusters and berries undergo careful selection with further sorting on our new super duper optical sorter. Only perfect fruit will make it to the fermentation tanks.
Our Team
The Poggio la Noce family
Poggio la Noce is now a small family, with Claire and Enzo, Roberto, Matteo, Andrei, Indika, Jude, and Lara. Taking care of everything, from the work in the vineyards and in the cellar, to welcoming our guests for wine tastings and tours.
We all participate in the harvest, including the manual selection of all the grapes. And to help with quality control, our pet family, the geese, chicks, rabbits, cats, and dogs watch over us.
Husband and wife, Enzo Schiano and Claire Beliard, are the owners of the estate. They share the vision and love for making great wines. They now spend most of their time in the United States helping promote and sell the Poggio La Noce wines and Olive Oil.
Roberto Corti is the estate Manager. Roberto studied agronomy at the University of Florence and cares for all aspects of the vineyard work as well as that of the cellar, and manages the wine making along with Claire and Enzo.
Matteo Massai, the youngest team member, and who graduated from the University of Florence (in Viticulture and Oenology), is Roberto's assistant and precious help in the vineyard and cellar. Andrei Untaru is one of the cellar hands and vineyard worker, as well as being best buddy to Matteo. The two brothers Indika and Jude, natives of Sri Lanka, have been with Poggio La Noce for years and help out with absolutely everything.
Lastly Lara Maciel, who comes all the way from Sao Paolo, Brazil, is a professional sommelier and is in charge of all the winery visits and wine tastings. During the slower winter months, she manages all the marketing and communications activities, whether participating in trade shows, running online promotions, and keeping the buzz going on social media.
Our consulting team is made up of Valentino Ciarla, our technical oenologist, as well as GianLuca Grassi, who is our agronomist.
And of course, all this is under the careful guardianship of our beloved rescue dogs, Mela & Pifette.
Explore Poggio la Noce
The winery
In the hills just outside Florence, a small estate making delicious organic wines. The property nestled in the hills of Fiesole, includes several vineyards, all relatively small human dimensions, cared for manually and, of course, farmed following organic practices. Our wines strive to express the essence of Sangiovese grown on our hillside.
Our Wines
Looking for a wine to share with friends and family, a gift for a loved one, or simply to enjoy sipping a delicious organic wine? We have it all! Come and meet the family: Red, white, rosato, bubbles!
Tastings
We offer small and intimate visits to the winery and the vineyards. Our tastings focus on providing an in-depth but always fun and unique experience of all our wines and olive oil (with accompanying snacks), a taste of what life at the winery can be like!
