Est. 1435 
18 wines 
Tastings
Tours
Accommodation
Booking required 
Fonterutoli Wine Tour
A 75 minute guided path through the Author's Cellar of Castello di Fonterutoli, the gravity winery designed by Agnese Mazzei, finishing with four estate wines.
Book this experienceMarchesi Mazzei
The Mazzei family has made wine at Castello di Fonterutoli, just south of Castellina in Chianti, since 1435, and it was a Mazzei who wrote the first documented mention of Chianti as a wine, in 1398. Twenty-four generations later the estate farms 110 hectares of vineyard in 114 separately vinified parcels, with sister properties at Belguardo in the Maremma and Zisola at Noto in Sicily. The hamlet itself now works as a wine resort, with the Osteria di Fonterutoli restaurant and daily tours of the gravity-fed cellar.
-
Tuscany
- Est. 1435
- 18 wines
- Tastings
- Tours
- Accommodation
- Booking required
Wines from Marchesi Mazzei
Experiences at Marchesi Mazzei
Bookable experiences, curated by our editors. External booking where marked.
3 Cru, 3 UGA, 3 Gran Selezione
The enthusiast's tier: a winery tour with private room and six wines over 100 minutes, built around the estate's three single-zone Gran Selezione crus.
Book this experienceCastello di Fonterutoli Wine Resort
A widespread hotel in the heart of Chianti Classico: rooms and suites scattered through the old houses of the Fonterutoli hamlet, a few steps from the winery and the Osteria.
Book this experienceFonterutoli Wine Tour
A 75 minute guided path through the Author's Cellar of Castello di Fonterutoli, the gravity winery designed by Agnese Mazzei, finishing with four estate wines.
Book this experienceAbout Marchesi Mazzei
The word Chianti enters wine history through a Mazzei. On 16 December 1398 the Florentine notary Ser Lapo Mazzei recorded payment to Piero di Tino Riccio for six barrels of Chianti wine in his correspondence with the merchant Francesco Datini, the first documented use of the name for a wine. In 1435 his granddaughter Smeralda married Piero di Agnolo da Fonterutoli, bringing the estate into the family, where it has remained through twenty-four generations. Filippo and Francesco Mazzei lead the company today, Francesco having driven the 1997 acquisition of Belguardo in the Maremma, while the twenty-fifth generation is already at work: Giovanni oversees Il Caggio, home of the Ipsus Chianti Classico Gran Selezione, and Lapo runs the retail side. Philip, the estate's Cabernet Sauvignon, honours Filippo Mazzei, the eighteenth century Tuscan who exchanged ideas with Thomas Jefferson.
Fonterutoli covers 650 hectares between Castellina and Siena, of which 110 are vines planted between 220 and 570 metres in seven zones, subdivided into 114 parcels that are picked by hand and vinified separately. The winery that makes that possible was designed by Agnese Mazzei, the family's architect: a three-level gravity structure with 74 tapered 100 hectolitre steel vats, and a barrel cellar 15 metres down in the rock where five natural springs hold temperature and humidity for more than 3000 casks, part of the Toscana Wine Architecture circuit of designer cellars. From these parcels come the Fonterutoli Chianti Classico, the Ser Lapo Riserva, the Castello Fonterutoli Gran Selezione and its single-UGA siblings, Siepi, the estate's benchmark Sangiovese and Merlot from the parcel of the same name, and Concerto di Fonterutoli, in production for more than four decades.
The family's map now runs well beyond Chianti. At Belguardo in the Maremma, bought in 1997, the focus has swung to Vermentino, from the Maremma Toscana DOC bottling to Belguardo V, a Vermentino Superiore built on clones from Corsica and Sardinia, alongside the Tirrenico red and a Bronzone Morellino di Scansano Riserva. At Zisola, outside Noto in south-east Sicily, the Mazzei make Noto Rosso from Nero d'Avola, the Doppiozeta selection under Noto DOC, the Azisa Grillo and the Effe Emme Petit Verdot. Farming across the estates leans on company compost, green manure and the elimination of chemical weedkillers, and the family calculates that Fonterutoli absorbs more carbon than it emits, though the wines carry no certification badge.
Few Tuscan estates are as open to visitors. The Fonterutoli Wine Tour runs 75 minutes through the working cellar with four wines, the private tiers stretch to the 3 Cru, 3 UGA, 3 Gran Selezione tasting of 100 minutes and six wines, and there are wine and food experiences plus private visits at Zisola and Belguardo. The borgo of Fonterutoli operates as a widespread hotel, the Castello di Fonterutoli Wine Resort, its rooms and suites scattered through the hamlet's old houses, and the Osteria di Fonterutoli serves its gourmet take on Tuscan cooking every day of the week.
Visiting Marchesi Mazzei
Editorially verified by ItalianWines.co.uk.
Tastings
Available
Tours
Available
Accommodation
Available
Booking
Required
Plan your visit
Via Ottone III, 5 - Località Fonterutoli, 53011 Castellina in Chianti, Siena (Toscana)
Get in touch
Have a question or need help with a booking?
Tell us what you need and we'll help you reach Marchesi Mazzei and arrange a visit or tour. We reply within two working days.
Plate I · TUSCANY
Marchesi Mazzei on the Tuscany wine atlas
What Marchesi Mazzei makes
Marchesi Mazzei's current bottle selection is led by Toscana IGT. The clearest grape signal comes from Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Denominations
Multiple varieties permitted
Key grapes
Common questions
-
Since 1435, when Smeralda Mazzei, granddaughter of the notary Ser Lapo Mazzei, married Piero di Agnolo da Fonterutoli, twenty-four generations ago. Ser Lapo himself wrote the first documented mention of Chianti as a wine in a letter of 16 December 1398, which is why he is often called the father of Chianti Classico.
More from Tuscany
