I have lived on this farm forever: I was born there, literally, because on December 19, 1968 there was such a snowfall that it prevented my mother from being taken to the hospital.

The history of the winery starts from a family tradition. Under my father's management, as was customary in the sixties, we made wine for the house, selling the remaining part of the grapes, produced in the 2 and a half hectares of property.

Since I was a child I have participated in the life of the fields, going to help in the vineyard, among the tractors and the grape harvest... Later, I decided to move away and do something else: I studied design and started designing furniture for a local industry. But the connection with my land was visceral and at the end of the 90s I felt its very strong call. The vineyard needed to be replanted and I returned, starting a profound modernization of production .

For several years, until 2011, I sold the grapes because I had a wine in mind that reflected my ideal of quality and it took time to achieve it. I waited 10 years to make wine myself: since then we have followed every phase, also thanks to a very good oenologist and agronomist, Mery Ferrara, with whom we understood each other quickly.

I am convinced that wine reflects those who make it. Our soils express subtle, elegant and very fragrant wines ; to this we add the use of small barrels, produced in Burgundy, without toasting and closed by steam. In this way we guarantee elegance, maximizing the varietal characteristics of Sangiovese.

The name of the winery? My surname, Barbi, could not be used. One day I bought a dictionary of the dialect of Montepulciano and Val d'Orcia - my family is originally from Pienza - and discovered that the term "barbicaia" indicates the group of vine roots that emerge from the ground. And it seemed to me that everything added up, meaning and philosophy .

Marco Barbi