While visiting family in Loreto Aprutino in Abruzzo, Italy, in May, I heard about Count Sebastiano Capponi’s 500 year celebration of Villa Calcinaia, near Greve in Chianti, nestled in the Tuscan hillside, famous for its award-winning DOCG Chianti Classico in Chianti. The Capponi family purchased Villa Calcinaia in 1524.

I journeyed to Villa Calcinaia, about 20 minutes outside Florence, accompanied by my cousin from Loreto Aprutino, Simona Nobilio. The two of us shared a renovated sharecropper’s cottage on this country estate among rolling hills with Pio Imports Partner & Vice President Dave Dahme, one of Sebastiano’s largest importers of Villa Calcinaia award-winning wines.