Loia Palazzo, a story of passion
The story of the Palazzo winery began with love at first sight. It was 1982.
Cosimo and Antonietta, husband and wife, were looking for a magical, beautiful and special place where they could finally retire after thirty years of living in England and Scotland as restaurant entrepreneurs.
Cosimo and Antonietta, originally from Benevento, returned every year to visit their relatives in Tuscany and Campania. And each time, as they travelled around the country, the desire to return to their homeland grew stronger. So it was that on one of their trips they stopped in Montalcino, an enchanting medieval village which at the time was not yet too famous for its great wines and which, with its rounded hills, lush woods, vineyards and centuries-old olive trees, reminded them of the Sannio Beneventano.
And the dream began to take shape.
In 1982, Cosimo Loia and Antonietta Palazzo, captivated by Montalcino, visited various estates before finding the place of their dreams: a 12-hectare hillside estate with a 17th-century farmhouse, looking out like a belvedere over the spectacular Val d'Orcia; later recognised as a Unesco World Heritage Site.
It was also a sign of fate. The company was called Palazzo: like Antonietta's surname.
It was immediately clear to them that they would become wine producers and, driven by passion and with farsightedness, they bought the rights to plant Brunello di Montalcino grapes on an area of 5 hectares.
In 1985 they planted the Sangiovese Grosso vines destined for the Brunello, which they began to vinify in 1990, first as Rosso di Montalcino, with the help of their children. Then in 1994, when the vines reached the nine years of age necessary for the grapes to ripen properly, they finally celebrated the first harvest of Brunello di Montalcino.