The starting point was practical rather than romantic. In 1961 thirty small growers around Vinci, squeezed by the end of the mezzadria system that had organised Tuscan farming for centuries, put their money together to build one cellar they could all deliver to. The first harvest came in 1965 and the early output was bulk wine. Membership climbed towards 200 and the vineyard area grew from an initial 70 hectares to several hundred across the Chianti zone. In 1990 the cooperative bought a winery at Montalcino with its growers and vineyards, adding Rosso di Montalcino and Brunello di Montalcino to a range that had been built on Sangiovese from the Montalbano hills.
The Leonardo connection is more than a label. He was born at Vinci in 1452, his family held land and vines around the town, and the wine references run through his notebooks; Ludovico il Moro gave him a hectare of vineyard in Milan as payment for the Last Supper, the only property named in his will. The winery built its identity on that, down to the 1515 letter to his estate manager Zanobi Boni in which he complains about four bad carafes and sets out how the vines should be tended.
The range is organised as collections. Villa da Vinci takes its fruit from vineyards around the villa at Vinci, with labels drawn from details of the Annunciation and names borrowed from the historic field names of Leonardo's family: S.to Ippolito, a Sangiovese, Merlot and Syrah blend, San Zio from Sangiovese with a little Colorino, the Linarius Syrah, the Streda Vermentino and a Vin Santo. Da Vinci i Capolavori covers the Montalcino wines, including the San Giovanni Battista Brunello. The 1502 Da Vinci in Romagna collection follows the six months Leonardo spent working for Cesare Borgia, with wines from Cesena, Cesenatico, Faenza and Imola and his own drawings of those places on the labels.
Vineyard work at Villa da Vinci started its specialised replanting programme in 1995 with three hectares and continued year by year. The soils there carry marine fossils, the hills having been under water four million years ago, and Sangiovese is the variety the site is built around. The technical team has consistently framed its research as a modern reading of Leonardo's own notes on winemaking.
The recent history is harder. After the first signs of trouble in 2023 and 2024 and a failed negotiated restructuring, the Ministry of Enterprise ordered compulsory administrative liquidation on 11 February 2026, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on 26 February, citing short-term debts of 13.47 million euro against current assets of 5.55 million and a commissioner, Luigi Zingone, appointed to wind the cooperative up. In April 2026 Vecchia Cantina di Montepulciano bought a business branch and joined the Caviro membership, keeping 18 of the 22 remaining jobs; Leonardo da Vinci S.p.A., the Caviro-owned company that already held the brand, continues to sell the wines, now made at Montepulciano. The bottles listed on this page span that history, from the Chianti and Chianti Riserva to the Villa da Vinci Toscana IGT wines, the Montalcino pair and the Romagna collection.
Tuscany, Italy
Est. 1961 
15 wines 
Tastings
Tours
Accommodation
Walk-ins welcome 
Multiple varieties permitted
