Certaldo, Winery, and Florence American Cemetery

(This is part of our series of posts from our six-week Road Scholar Independent Living and Learning in Florence trip to Italy in Spring 2025. We have an index to all the posts from that trip here.)

This morning, we checked out of our hotel in Volterra and began the journey by bus back to Florence, making a few stops in Tuscany on the way back. Our first stop was the old city of Certaldo. Like Volterra and many other medieval towns, Certaldo was built high on a hill to make it easier to defend. For this reason, the old city is known as Certaldo Alto to distainguish it from the modern city below. A funicular transported us up the steep slope to the old city.

From near the top of the funicular track, we had a good view of “modern” Certaldo below us.

Palazzo Pretoriao in Certaldo. Like many other Tuscan towns we’ve visited, the seat of the town’s government bears the family crests of those who served as leaders in the past.

The small-town Italy version of “neighborhood watch”. (Photo by our Road Scholar classmate Richard.)

Looking down the main street of Certaldo Alto.

Modern Certaldo below the old city.

Porta al Rivellino, one of the only two entrances to the ancient walled city, was placed on the eastern side of the Certaldo hill to defend against the neighboring enemy province of Siena.

Through the Porta al Rivellino, there is a beautiful panorama of the Elsa Valley as far as the town of Sam Gimignano.

The red brick buildings of Certaldo Alto from the city wall.

A couple walks through one of the narrow streets of Certaldo Alto.

From Certaldo, we traveled to Villa le Corti for a wine tasting, light lunch, and tour of the winery. In 1363, the Corsini family purchased the land in the Chianti area of Tuscany on which the Villa le Corti stands. Over the following seven centuries, the family transformed it into an architectural and landscape complex now recognized as an Italian national monument for its historical value. The villa was designed in the early 1600s. It houses the spaces dedicated to wine production and storage, the oil cellar, the tasting rooms, and the Osteria, and is also still the residence of the Corsini family.

We tasted three different Chiantis produced by the winery: a light one aged only in stainless steel, a more full-bodied one aged in stainless steel and then in oak barrels, and a more complex one made from both sangiovese and merlot grapes. (Photo by Brenda, our group leader.)

The variety of Tuscan cured meats, served with bread and olive oil produced on-site, paired very nicely with the Chiantis.

And then after lunch, there was limoncello cream.

After our tasting and lunch, we received a tour of the wine and olive oil production facilities. These are the stainless steel tanks in which most of their Chiantis receive their first aging.

Descending into the cellars of Villa le Corti, which were built in the 1600s.

The main barrel aging cellar. A member of the Corsini family became Pope Clemente XII and gave the title of Principe (prince) to the entire family.

These concrete fermentation tanks, built in the mid-1900s, are used to finish the winery’s lighter-bodied Chiantis.

Old olive oil storage from the 1800s. Villa le Corti used them until about 10 years ago, but stopped because they allow oxygen into the oil, which impairs its flavor and is not permitted under the rules for the “D.O.P.” quality and origin certification. The facility now stores olive oil in stainless steel tanks until it can be bottled.

Because the Corsini family once pressed olives for many families in the area, each family had their own terra cotta storage urn, marked with their family crest.

A modern machine for washing and culling olives before pressing for oil.

A modern olive cold-pressing machine. The olives are pressed whole, including their seeds.

A centrifuge to separate solids from liquid oil and water after pressing. Another centrifuge then removes any water, leaving only pure extra-virgin olive oil. The entire process takes only about 30 minutes, thus preserving the flavor of the oil.

After harvesting grapes for Vin Santo, a sweet dessert wine, the grapes are air-dried on these racks for about a month to concentrate their sugars.

Barrels containing Vin Santo, which is aged for 10 years. Note the handwritten calculations and notes on the walls of the old cellar.

Our last stop before returning to Florence was the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial, on the south side of the city.

The Memorial honors the American soldiers who died during the liberation of Italy from the Axis forces in World War II.

Plaques list the hundreds of names of the soldiers buried in the cemetery.

This inscription on the Memorial’s obelisk also appears in Italian on the other side.

Chapel of the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial.

Several huge stone tablets tell the story of the multi-year battle for Italy between the Allied forces and the Axis powers.

This mosaic map shows the history of the movements of the Allied forces from southern Italy through the country and into Western Europe near the end of the war.

Grave markers in the cemetery.