Bindi Sergardi

The house dates its origin to 1349 and counts twenty-three generations working the land around Siena. By 1400 the family had moved from Montalcino into the city, and the compound surname comes from the union of two lines: the Bindi, from the Chiusi area, and the Sergardi, of Siena.

The family archive reads like a history of Siena. Niccolò di Giovanni joins the Consistory in 1463 and is consul of the Mercanzia in 1496. Achille appears in 1519 as master of the salt customs. And his son Niccolò is, in 1530, diplomatic envoy to Pope Clement VII and, between 1552 and 1557, one of the defenders of Sienese independence against the armies of Charles V.

That is where the episode that best sums up the family lies: Bishop Achille Sergardi hosted the embassy of Emperor Charles V in the sixteenth century; his son ended up fighting the armies of that same emperor. The estate's wines carry those names today —Achille, Nicolò, Ser Gardo, Bindo— so that the range works as a family tree.

The winery is run today by Alessandra Casini Bindi Sergardi, twenty-third generation, alongside her sister Maddalena. There are three estates: Mocenni in Vagliagli, I Colli between Vagliagli and Monteriggioni, and Marcianella in Chiusi.

I Colli, the source of our Chianti Classico, is a hamlet the family built at the end of the sixteenth century in the northern province of Siena. It sits at 350 metres, with a density of 5,000 vines per hectare on soils of roccia della Montagnola and alberese.