General cost of wine tasting in Tuscany--Reservations needed?

Our experience with wine tasting at the better wineries is that you absolutely need reservations and pay the fee - varies but around ten euro and up to 20, 30 euro depending on what is included. Sometimes there are road side stands offering wine tasting that may or may not be associated with a particular winery that are just walk ups. Sometimes the winery itself is just up the hill. We showed up at one well known winery without a reservation and they refused to let us in even thought there were only two cars other cars in the parking lot. Reservations were required at least a day in advance. Tuscany is not Napa Valley.

Some of the wineries will have kitchen and offer food. I don't remember the name but we had lunch at a winery that offered a four course lunch with wine parings for about 75 euro. At the time I thought it was expensive but afterwards it was well worth especially for the setting and experience. (It was the castle that supposedly was the setting for the Mona Lisa - probably a story but the background matched,)

One winery you absolutely must see is Antinori, outside of Florence. And they also had a great restaurant. Antinori is without question the newest, most futuristic winery we have ever visited. Fantastic comparison to many of the older wineries that are buried in the bowels of old castles.

For our trip last May we were working from a list of top wineries in Tuscany that had been in an article in Wine Spectator - I think. I am sure you can find it on the internet. We found that we could only handle about three wineries a day and only two if we had lunch. Have a good GPS as some wineries are hard to find.

PS Some will include a balsamic vinegar tasting. With no balsamic experience the tasting were very interesting. At one tasting a 50 or maybe 75 year old balsamic was actually dispensed with an eyedropper - one drop on a very tiny spoon about the size of a dime. I think a 100ml bottle sold for a 100 Euro. Since then our consumption of balsamic vinegar has increased substantially but 20 year old is our limit. Great on ice cream, watermelon, etc.

You'll be able to find some driving around that you don't need a reservation for. If you are fans of Brunello, make a reservation at Biondi Santi in Montalicino not to far from MOntepulciano.

You will find a couple of wineries that have tasting rooms in Montepulciano that don't require reservations. Poliziano has a tasting room on Piazza Grande, with exceptional wines. Coming back down the hill, Crociani offers tastings, as does Avignonesi closer to the main entrance of the town. Allan

Thank you, all! Perfect information! I appreciate the names of some of the wineries so we can look for them. I will make sure we have reservations for the bigger wineries and take our chances on the smaller ones.

If anyone else has any suggestions for wineries to visit, please post!

jsgrimm

I was in Tuscany in April and because a friend of mine had been to this winery and highly recommended it I reserved a tour with a luncheon before we went there. The place is out of this world and besides the awesome wine, food the service and tour outstanding. One must not do the luncheon but I highly recommend it. Besides this we also stopped at one of the many local wine producers , dropped in had a taste and yes bought a bottle of wine. I am going back to Italy end of August and already made reservations yet again. That's how much I liked it. I highly recommend it for sure. Enjoy your trip! https://www.avignonesi.it/en

Talosa and Contucci also right on the main square in Montepulciano as well.

This is the winery Frank mentioned.

http://www.vignamaggio.com/en/

Home of Leonardo's Mona Lisa.

That is it !!!!!! Take the lunch with the wine pairings. Sit outside overlooking the fields. That will be one of the best days of your life - other than your wedding.

There are so many great wineries and labels that never get across the water that you can spend your retirement visiting wineries. Seek them out. And please don't waste your time and money with the little road side tasting rooms with the big sign advertising Wine Tasting and sometimes - Free. That will suck in any good American tourist. I know, I have hit a bunch. All with mediocre wines. Life is too short to drink mediocre wine.

Gerri I tried to go on your site and it had a huge warning not to go to it? Please check it out..

I have strict security on my computers and just visited the website linked by gerri with no problems at all.

Thanks again for all the great ideas of wineries to visit! We will do some research, make some reservations and look for the others. I've already looked at a couple of websites of the places mentioned and they look very intriguing!

Are we going to be ok without a designated driver? How long after a wine tasting should we linger around before we drive?

That is hard to judge and, obviously, depends on many factors. The actually wine tasting are small portions of four or five wines. Lunch with wine parings is another matter since they tend to be generous with the wine but you do have a lot of food. We never viewed it as a potential problem.

@Susanne: Got the same Microsoft warning (unsafe website). Try this instead: http://www.vignamaggio.com/en/azienda/

JSGRIMM I had 2 glasses of wine total and the tasting with lunch took several hours.

Robert thank you it worked now :)

I am about to travel in July as well but found this link with lots of wineries, wine shops, and restaurants.
http://www.winewordswisdom.com/travel_itineraries/southern-tuscany-wine-tour.html