San Felice is delicately balanced between simplicity and abundance. The entrance is sober, essential, Tuscan, without gates or doors with the friendly but frugal and unassuming welcome, typical of an ancient agricultural borgo, which not renounced to its quiet everyday life. The hospitality offered is generous, rich and elegant. It welcomes you in the form of the refined setting of a restaurant lit externally by a low, diffused light which creates a natural, relaxing reflection. This atmosphere is very much alive near the swimming pool which blends so well with the ancient surrounding stone buildings and the refined interior decoration of the suites and rooms of the Relais. We are on an estate, but we have not yet felt the typical bustle of business activity. As in a perfectly organized microcosm, everything flows without your realizing it. All this goes to the benefit of those who choose San Felice to spend a few days of unusual, stimulating serenity.
Giovanni Gorio, an engineer from Milan, chose the countryside of the Chianti closer to Siena in which to live and work. He controls this composite productive center with the skill of a director who knows he can rely on a good script and a successful setting. He is a director who prefers to stay behind the scenes to lead the dance without losing control of everything that is going on only intervening if an interpreter needs advice to act his part better. He himself takes us around to appreciate all the secrets of San Felice. The first ’secret’ is the revelation of the borgo. It consists of a group of stone houses, which show again their ancient, sirnple dignity thanks to an architectural rehabilitation which correctly observes the traditional canons of the Chianti. The different parts of the buildings belong to different periods even if the unaccustomed eye would be deceived because everything is built in stone and everything seems to belong stylistically to the same period. The main palace and other buildings were built in the 19th century but behind the large square of access is concealed the small medieval borgo which has generally maintained its original characteristics. On the subject we can read: “The loggias, covered spaces, external stairways, dovecots, little roads that lead to small squares, the paving in cotto and stone and the sheds (barns isolated for fear of fires) are all typical elements of the medieval borgo in the Chianti”.
We came here, above all, for the wine of San Felice which is the force of attraction of the borgo. At lunch, Gorio uncorks a bottle of Vigorello. We begin with a historical label created here, in this very place, just when there was the need to try out something new. Agreed, tradition should be observed and particularly appreciated but now and then, a few exceptions to the rule give us the idea of open-mindedness, a sign of mental curiosity and intelligence.
What I mean is that this wine gave rise to a great deal of controversy when it was presented at the end of the Sixties. It was an experiment which included the combination with ‘heretical’ grapes. It was not a Chianti Classico but a Chianti with the addition of Cabernet Sauvignon, a grape that many others have tried out in recent years and which is now, though to a lesser degree, normally added to the grapes of the Chianti Classico.
In these years, the first big investments in the territory for the revival of wine production were made. In 1978, in this atmosphere of renewal, the Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà R.A.S. purchased San Felice whose vineyards now cover more than 200 hectares. This area is not only dedicated to wine Production but also includes a space for serious experimentation carried out together with the Universities of Florence, Siena and Pisa. Naturally these experiments deal with viticulture and especially with the selection of clones, the preservation of the genetic heredity of each type of grape and the most advanced forms of cultivating them.
We have spoken about the wines of San Felice and now we want to talk about the oil of San Felice. We were able to taste it during lunch. It was somewhat pungent, very agreeable, slightly fruity with a strong taste. It is an unusually balanced oil, the product of accurate work, carried out on 150 hectares cultivated with olive groves. Numerous olive trees surround this relais in the countryside to protect it from the bedlam of present-day life.

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See also:

The Antinori Family Wine Producers, The Castle Of Gabbiano in Chianti, Antinori: Wine Makers for 800 Years, Mazzei of Fonterutoli Chianti Makers, Volpaia: a Wine, a Hamlet, Colle Bereto in Florence, The Small Vineyard of Colle Bereto, The Great Montevertine: a Small Winegrower, Albola by Zonin, Castello Brolio of Ricasoli Firidolfi, Colombaio di Cencio Tech Wine, Ricasoli of Cacchiano

or go back to Chianti Wine Producing Estates