Tenuta La Ghiaia farms five hectares of Vermentino and Colli di Luni DOC reds on the gravel bed of the old Magra river at Sarzana, where Liguria meets Tuscany under the Apuan Alps. The Lotti family runs the estate as both an organic cellar and a five-suite Maison de Charme, with vineyard tastings and overnight stays sharing the same nineteenth-century manor. Founder Luciano Lotti planted the first vines in the late 1960s; his daughter Olivia leads the estate today.
Liguria
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Bookable experiences, curated by our editors. External booking where marked.
Guided visit of the underground barricaia and vineyards on the gravel of the old Magra riverbed, followed by a tasting of the estate's three Vermentini and Colli di Luni DOC red, often paired with local Lunigiana products. Bookable through the resort on request.
Book this experienceOvernight stay in one of five suites in the nineteenth-century manor (Suite, Suite Deluxe, Executive Suite, Junior Suite or Family Suite), each with private bath, garden balcony and air conditioning. Breakfast is served in the cellar's arched dining room, with a welcome glass of estate Vermentino on arrival, plus a seasonal outdoor pool and garden.
Book this experienceGuided visit of the underground barricaia and vineyards on the gravel of the old Magra riverbed, followed by a tasting of the estate's three Vermentini and Colli di Luni DOC red, often paired with local Lunigiana products. Bookable through the resort on request.
Book this experienceSarzana sits at the easternmost tip of Liguria, just inside the regional border with Tuscany, in a corner of Italy the Romans called Luni. Tenuta La Ghiaia farms a vineyard amphitheatre here, sheltered between the Apuan Alps to the east and the Gulf of Poets to the west. The land sits on the ancient bed of the Magra river, and the gravel that gives the property its name (ghiaia is Italian for gravel) drives the salinity and minerality the family looks for in the glass.
The estate was bought in the late 1960s by Luciano Lotti, a longtime expert in winemaking who decided to plant his own vineyard at the Liguria-Tuscany border. He set out Vermentino alongside Merlot, Sangiovese and a handful of native varieties he knew, and ran the property with the patience of someone who wanted it to outlive him. His daughter Olivia took over and now leads the estate; the new vines that ring the original parcels are dedicated to her father.
Roughly five hectares are farmed organically inside the Colli di Luni DOC zone, with a deeper-rooting subsoil of river stone and glacial gravel that the family credits for the briny, almost stony lift in the wines. The vineyards face an open sky between Mediterranean breeze and Apennine cold air, and the pronounced day-night temperature swing keeps the harvest aromatic and tense, especially the Vermentino that the cellar treats as its signature.
The cellar is recent, sober and built into the slope: an underground barricaia under brick cross-vaults, stainless steel for fermentation, tonneaux and concrete egg-shaped tanks for the longer-aged wines, and a caveau where the bottles rest before release. From this small set of tools the family draws three Vermentini (the estate-level Tenuta La Ghiaia, the older-vine Atys and the more reflective Ithaa), Undicinodi, a Colli di Luni DOC red built on Sangiovese with Ciliegiolo, Canaiolo and Merlot from a 1980s parcel that helped define the appellation, and a Liguria di Levante IGT rosato. The estate also presses an extra-virgin olive oil from its own groves.
The nineteenth-century manor house at the top of the property has been turned into a five-suite Maison de Charme. Guests sleep in vintage rooms with garden balconies and air conditioning, take breakfast in a long arched room set inside the cellar, and walk straight into the vines for tastings. Sarzana railway station and the A12 motorway are minutes away; the Cinque Terre, Portovenere, the Via Francigena and the Forte dei Marmi coast are inside an easy day trip.
Editorially verified by ItalianWines.co.uk.
Plate I · LIGURIA
Tastings
Tours
Accommodation
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