Agriturismo-Montalcino-People-Roots-&-Dawn-Over-Val-d-Orcia

IL COCCO
Tuscany tales


There is a kind of travel that cannot be measured in miles covered or sights visited. It is measured in people met, in stories heard, in dawns witnessed alongside someone you didn't know the day before. Podere Il Cocco, a certified organic agriturismo in Montalcino, has always been one of those places where this kind of travel is possible. In this article I share the true story of this place — and mine.



People: the real luxury of slow travel


At Il Cocco, you meet people. You talk, you listen, you exchange stories that you won't find in any travel guide.

Over the years I have met guests of every nationality, every age, every background. But the ones I remember most — the ones who left something behind — were not on holiday. They were travelling to understand. Travelling to appreciate places, to know the people who live in them, to bring something real home with them.

One of these encounters I will never forget. A remarkable man — Egyptian by origin, German by adoption — who had built his entire working life around a simple and quietly revolutionary principle: enjoying what you do. No rush. No performance. Just the daily satisfaction of work done with presence and pleasure.

We sat together and talked for hours. And I thought: this is why this place exists. Not to provide a service. To create the space where these encounters can happen.

guests agriturismo Montalcino Podere Il Cocco meeting people

The choice to stop: why I closed the restaurant


There is something people ask me often: "Why did you close the restaurant? Why did you reduce the number of rooms?"

The honest answer is that it wasn't a business decision. It was a life decision.

For years I ran Il Cocco trying to do everything — the restaurant, the agriturismo, the winery, the guests, the staff. And at a certain point I realised I was managing Il Cocco instead of living it. Running instead of walking. Serving instead of being.

I chose to stop. Not out of tiredness or defeat. To find myself again. To return to being that fourteen-year-old who walked between the rows of Sangiovese and felt at home. I simplified, I stripped back, I removed everything that wasn't essential — and what remained was the most beautiful thing I could offer: myself, this place, and the time to enjoy it together.

I have no interest in competing with the grand luxury agriturismos. That's not my game. What I want to offer is something they cannot: a unique, authentic place where relaxation isn't a service but a way of life. A place where a stay of at least three nights is the minimum to truly begin to breathe.

Deep roots: fourteen years and a family story


I started working here at fourteen. Not as a conscious choice — it was simply what one did. It was the family farmstead, the place where summers were spent, where winters passed, where life had an ancient and unhurried rhythm.

Podere Il Cocco has a history worth telling. In the early twentieth century, my great-great- Bindi Gino — married one of the Ciacci sisters, who owned the entire estate of Villa a Tolli. From that marriage the farmstead passed to my grandfather Giovanni. And Giovanni loved it deeply.

Giovanni understood something that very few people do: that quiet is a privilege, not an absence. He loved the altitude of the Podere, where summers are cool and the air smells of forest and vine. He came often. He stayed long. He died at the age of 106 — and to me, that is the most eloquent proof that he was right about everything.

He was a stern man. He never said I love you — he wasn't made that way. But every week he sent me a letter. "Giacomo, set aside fifty euros each month. Giacomo, study." Those letters were his way of loving me. I understood this only with time. I understood it here, in this Podere he left me through my grandmother — a place that today is the centre of my life and my future.

historic vineyards Podere Il Cocco Montalcino

The dawn, the storm, and the future I saw


There was a time when I encountered the dawn leaving nightclubs. I worked in clubs, catered weddings, lived by night. When dawn came, it meant the end of something — the end of work, the end of the night.

Today I go looking for the dawn myself.

I set the alarm for five o'clock. My legs protest, my back tells me to wait, my eyes resist opening. But then I get up, call Poldo, and we head out into the Podere together. We walk alone — just the two of us — between the vines, through the kitchen gardens, among the trees. And when the sky begins to lighten, I hear the first crow of the rooster. Then the birds. Then the silence that changes colour.

It is always the same dawn. But every morning it carries a different light.

One morning, around quarter past five, I witnessed something rare: dawn and thunderstorm together. Lightning illuminating the Val d'Orcia, distant thunder rolling between the hills, and above me the sky slowly opening to the light. I stopped. I watched. And in that moment I saw my future — not a vision, not a plan — but a quiet certainty. The certainty of knowing where I belong.

I don't regret the years spent in clubs, at weddings, in kitchens. All of that built who I am. But this — this dawn, this Podere, this silence that speaks — this is what I want. And I know it has value.

What you'll find at Il Cocco: kitchen gardens, butterflies, and real life


When you come to Il Cocco, you won't find a spa resort. You won't find an endless list of services. You'll find something harder to come by: a place that is the expression of a person and a history.

You'll find the kitchen gardens — tended with the same care as a vineyard. You'll find fruit trees of rare varieties, planted for their uniqueness and their ancient age. You'll find bees working in silence, butterflies passing without hurry, cats who have understood better than anyone how to live.

You'll hear the rooster at dawn. You'll watch the vegetables grow. You'll walk among the Brunello vineyards knowing that this land has been worked by hands that came before me and will continue after.

This is Il Cocco: a place where you find what every life should have.

We recommend a minimum stay of three nights — not for commercial reasons, but because three nights is the minimum time needed to stop being a visitor and truly begin to be here.

For more information, visit our website: www.ilcocco.it

For prices, availability and bookings: click to book

Or contact us by phone: +39 0577 848650

Podere Il Cocco is waiting for you. With its history, its roots, its Brunello — and a dawn that is worth the journey.


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Agriturismo-Montalcino-People-Roots-&-Dawn-Over-Val-d-Orcia

Tuscany tales

There is a kind of travel that cannot be measured in miles covered or sights visited. It is measured in people met, in stories heard, in dawns witnessed alongside someone you didn't know the day before. Podere Il Cocco, a certified ... ➔
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