Visiting Montepulciano

Nobody sells a ticket to Montepulciano. It is a walled hill town on a ridge in the Valdichiana Senese, free to walk into and free to walk around, and the things that charge charge separately. If you are pricing Montepulciano tickets, start with what is actually free, then decide what you want to pay for.

There is no town ticket, and four things that charge

The gate you are looking for does not exist. You walk in at Porta al Prato, you walk up the Corso, and you stand in Piazza Grande without paying anybody. What costs money is the tower of the Palazzo Comunale, the Museo Civico Pinacoteca Crociani, the Tempio di San Biagio below the walls, and every tasting in every cellar. Each of them keeps its own calendar, and two of them are shut for months of the year.

The hill, and how long it really takes

Montepulciano runs uphill from end to end. Porta al Prato is at the bottom, Piazza Grande is at the top, and the Corso climbs the whole way between them. A reviewer on one of the Florence coach days puts it plainly: be ready for a nice hard hike up. Allow much more time than the distance suggests, and a great deal more in August.

The old town is also a no-car zone. Two operators give the same answer in their own meeting-point text: park below and walk up. Parking 8 and San Donato are the two they name, and the guided walk's listing adds Parcheggio 7 and 6, all of them under the walls. Where each car park sits, and how long the climb from it takes, is on the map page.

Getting here without a car

There is no station in the town. The one that carries the name sits down on the plain, so you arrive by road: your own car, a bus up from the nearest railhead, or a coach day that does the driving. The coach days here leave from Rome, Florence and Siena and run ten to twelve hours door to door.

Read what each one gives you on the hill before you book. The best of them spends about two hours fifty-five minutes in the town plus a photo stop at San Biagio; one of the Rome days never enters Montepulciano at all, and spends its free time in Civita di Bagnoregio and Pienza instead. That is on its card, in its own words, because it is the single thing a traveller most needs to know before paying for it.

Where the tours meet

The addresses are scattered, and several of them are not where you would guess. The cellar doors are on Via Ricci and Via Talosa inside the walls; the farms are down by the Madonna della Querce church; the horses are out at a farm called Bertille; the Cesarine classes give you a home address only after you book. Arrive ten minutes early and allow for the climb.

What a first day costs

The honest answer is that a day here can cost you nothing at all, or it can cost more than a night's hotel, and the difference is entirely what you choose to drink. The table puts the free things and the booked things side by side. Sight prices are in euros, as the comune and the temple publish them; tour fares are in US dollars, as the operators' own listings show them.

None of the tastings here is free. Every fare is an operator's own price for opening a cellar, pouring several wines and telling you what you are drinking, and it is not a gate price that somebody else sets. That is why the range is as wide as it is.

What is in the glass

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is Sangiovese, called Prugnolo Gentile here, at a minimum of 70 per cent. It is aged a minimum of two years with at least one in wood, and the Riserva three. Rosso di Montepulciano is the younger wine from the same vineyards, aged about a year, and it is what people here drink at lunch.

The name is a place, not a grape. Montepulciano d'Abruzzo is made hundreds of kilometres east from a different variety that happens to share the name, and it is not this. The appellation took DOC by decree of 12 July 1966 and DOCG by decree of 1 July 1980, which is a firmer thing to stand on than the superlatives you will read elsewhere. There is more of this on the vineyards page.

Ages, drinking and children

Under-18s do not taste, and every operator sets its own minimum age. Check it before you book a family day.

• From 3: one of the Cinta Senese farm visits below the Madonna della Querce church, which also lists infant seats. Check which one you are booking.
• From 4: the Cesarine classes in a family kitchen, pasta and tiramiù.
• Adults only: most of the cellar tastings, which set a minimum of 18.
• Ask first: the e-bike and Vespa days, where the limit is about riding rather than about drinking.

For someone who is not drinking at all, the tower and its terrace, the Museo Civico, the Tempio di San Biagio and the whole length of the Corso are the day. Both farm visits are about food before wine, and the horseback ride's fare is bottled water and coffee.

Wheelchairs, pushchairs and the climb

The gradient is the obstacle here, not the doorways, and the listings are unusually explicit about it. Some say wheelchair accessible in their own words and most say the opposite, and both Florence coach days name wheelchair users under not suitable for. The cellars are reached by stairs, and one reviewer counts many of them going down.

If the climb is a question for anyone in your party, read the card and then ask the operator directly, because the answer changes by product rather than by company. On the private guided walk the tasting itself sits at the bottom of the hill, and a bus runs back up to the square.

When a tour is worth paying for

For the streets, the squares and the views you need nobody: walk in and walk up. A tour earns its fare underground, in cellars that keep no counter open to the street, and out in the vineyards, which you cannot reach on foot. It also earns it on a coach day, where the alternative is driving yourself and not drinking.

In August, and over the Bravìo delle Botti weekend at the end of the month, it earns it simply by holding you a seat. The cellars are small, several listings are flagged likely to sell out, and the home cooking classes cap at eight to fifteen places.

Asked before you go