Chianti Castles tour from Palazzo San Niccolò

Palazzo San Niccolò can also arrange tours of Chianti Castles, and the most famous Castle is Meleto Castle: majestic castle on the outskirts of Gaiole in Chianti surrounded by trees, which can be reached by a road on the same side. We don’t have many information regarding the origin f the Castle; it should have been built at the end of XII century by a branch of Ricasoli family. The current building is well preserved with the shoe basement and the apparatus of the hinged top, is nearly square where is located the older tower; the two cylindrical towers in the corners south and east are perhaps of the fifteenth century. The rest of the building, which is around an elegant and of Renaissance style courtyard, it was restructured during Baroque period as evidenced by the big windows and the big portal in the south-west side.

Brolio Castle: was donated in 1009 to Badia di Firenze with his court by the Marquis Bonifazio , the son of Count Alberto; in the middle of next century the Castle passed by the possession of Firidolfi. It came under the rule of Florence. Florence considered this Castle so important that in 1298 that sent there a Mayor which later erected new fortress. The walls that the Mayor built have the shape of an irregular pentagon, are one of the most important example of fortified walls. The walls are well preserved, with the high base and the many archer-sharpshooter are located in different heights and are the most interesting part of the Castle. During the last century Brolio has the home and the shelter of Bettino Ricasoli, a great statesman at the time of the unification of Italy; Bettino was a very cultured man, an agronomist and he was the person who established the composition of "Chianti" wine in the percentage of different type of grapes. The castle has a big restructuring in Gothic style of Siena with a typical romantic taste during this last period of glory.

Another small medieval village is Vertine, that is always considered one of the most strategic point of Chianti Region. Vertine is still one of extraordinary and fascinating fortified medieval village:the road is shaped like a ring where inside are the original buildings and the access to the village is passing over a portal with a beautiful stone tower with good results in pointed arch and round arched windows, in which blocks of dark stone alternating with white stone of Alberese; there are also various parts of walls with a semicircular tower and a very high building at the end of the south part of the village.