Le Due Porte : The Place

The winery address – and that of my own family for more than a decade – is Le Due Porte. This small part of Montalcino is all named in relation to Le Due Porte; whether di sotto (below), di sopra (above) and even the diminutive Le Due Portine. To date I have been unable to unearth any documentary explanation for this toponym but the search continues.

As we go back to older historical documents the name morphs to Le Due Porti ; this vowel change is significant, the difference between two doors and two ports. A fantastical explanation for this could be that connected with the altitude that means we can see the sea from the winery. It is actually possible to see two ports from the property – admittedly rarely simultaneously, only on the clearest of days and only a few times in a year – but the islands of Giglio and Montecristo and their “due porti” occasionally make an appearance on the skyline. It is also possible to see two “doors” or gateways in the walls of Montalcino from the Villa for that matter.

The most likely and more prosaic explanation is that the name is what is known as un nome parlante ; a merely descriptive, or talking name. The two doors could refer to the separate entrances to the Villa, the tall box-shaped Palazzone that gives its name to the property and which features so often in photographs of the vineyards next to the cellar.

Visitors to the property may remember terrible arguments in the car at this precise point.

Villa Due Porte and the Le Due Porte vineyard.

The 1825 arch and Villa Due Porte, home and kitchen of Raffaella Cova - could this be one of the Porte?