Poggio di Sopra
Climbing up the small road that leaves the small hamlet above St. Antimo, you find yourself on a cypress lined lane just before reaching the top of the hill.
Here stands the villa, looking out over rows of vineyards and hill crests marked with orderly trees and dotted with the occasional castle or farmhouse.
The hillside slopes, dotted with olive trees and traced by rows of vineyards, resemble a nubby green coverlet thrown over an antique bed.
The Poggio di Sopra is an original stone structure from the end of the 1800’s. It was completely refurbished in 1998, maintaining the original farm structure but at the same time providing a series of modern comforts.
The complex is made-up of two apartments, a separate professional kitchen with dining area and tasting bar and a small stone annex that has been converted into a utility building with laundry facilities, extra refrigerators, and work area.
The main building is also furnished with standard office and computer equipment.
Cars are left in a parking area under a statuesque olive tree situated on top of small mount with a circular flower bed round it. The complex itself is graced with terracotta flower boxes all around holding various types of geraniums.
Professional Kitchen:
Professional kitchen and spacious dining hall with smaller adjoining room with fireplace, two large leather couches and a wooden buffet suitable for wine tasting and hors d’oeuvres.
This area has windows on two sides of the structure and is witness to winter sunsets, featured in the hall are the wines of owners own label:
Castello Romitorio.
Small brightly covered prints by the artist Sandro Chia decorate the hall, some of them being the images used for the different types of wines of the private label.
Although the hall is not a restaurant for the public, private dinners and receptions can be arranged through our private cook.
Other outside areas offer a pizza oven and covered porch with large dining table perched on the edge of a slope with a spectacular view of St. Antimo.
White roses cover the western wall of the main structure while right in front of them grow, haphazardly, bushes of the classical herb quartet of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, interspersed by patches of geraniums; where these end an olive grove begins.
Entrance to the two apartments is on the southwest side of the complex together with the terraced porch done in herringbone terracotta brickwork and the swimming pool. Part of the porch and pool is covered by a sloped awning in masonry.
All look out onto the fantastic and unobstructed panorama. Mt. Amiata in front of us seems to keep us silent company while enjoying the vistas that extend as far as the horizon.
Accommodation
Lower level apartment
Unified kitchen, dining and living area that opens out onto the porch/ terrace above the pool.
Master bedroom and shower bath. Second bedroom with two single beds and divan bed.
Bathroom with small bathtub. Here, as in all the other units of Chia – Vittori ownership, the apartment is decorated with small colored prints of the Maestro.
Upper-level apartment
An outdoor travertine stairway leads to the three-bedroom apartment. The main door opens onto a comfortable and stylish salon with couches, armchairs and walls all done in a powdery grey-blue.
The chosen color-scheme, together with the numerous windows looking out on endless vistas, gives the feeling, even inside, of our being just a step away from being suspended in cottony clouds.
A spot where between earthly and celestial paradise lies only a thin cushion of vineyards and olive trees; and where the meeting of these two creates a particular eno-gastronomic alchemy which has given us the heavenly and world renowned wine of Montalcino.
The walls, where there is not one of the many windows, carry the prints of the artist; in this apartment one finds a nice variety of both colored prints and single or bi-colored pen and ink drawings.
On the west side of the house are two bedrooms: one double bedroom and one bedroom with two single beds.
This side of the house also has one bathroom with bathtub, a large armoire in the corridor and one shower bath.
The east side of the house is arranged like a master suite with master bedroom and adjoining sitting room and shower bathroom.
The kitchen, on the northern side of the house, has a dining table for eight.
Location
The Poggio di Sopra complex is located on a superb vantage point, peering out over two valleys; in one of these we are offered a bird's eye view of the Abazzia di St. Antimo, in the other we see the Orcia river.
And the breathtaking sights do not end there, for rising up, right in front of us to the south-east, lies the tall Tuscan landmark of Mt. Amiata, providing the most compelling view.
Testimonials :
Here, hovering just above the crest of the hill, with Mt. Amiata looking on and St. Antimo nestled in the shadowed valley below, the moon and sun greet each other briefly as they change shifts.
The lunar sphere is just above my left shoulder and the vineyards, while the blazing orange sun is more level with my right elbow and sinking fast among the olive trees.
Never before have I witnessed the chance meeting of these two characters, the moon smiling down on the golden leaves of the grape vines left even more gilded by the level rays of the setting sun.
John
Nests, NY USA
Moon at my back, I watch the sunset bleed its colors across a valley of multi-layered hill crests.
The incandescent orb paints the outer limits of the sky a champagne-pink, while closer profiles of the landscape lie still in a dark opaque green which, as the eye wanders off again towards the somehow feminine folds of the distant valley, becomes a shadowy bruised-blue.
Michelle Bobko, Houston TX
I cup my hands together to spy the heart of the panoramic prism through an improvised telescope. Am I gazing far off into atmospheric alchemy or peering into the eye of a peacock plume?
Miriam
Sethner , Toronto Canada
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