Palazzo Tamanti’s family has two separate paths into the modern history of Brunello. The better known one runs through Maria Tamanti, her daughter Caterina Santi and the Biondi-Santi estate, and it has its own section. This section follows the other path. A later Tamanti daughter, Giuliana, married Giovanni Colombini. Their family went on to run Fattoria dei Barbi and Il Casato, and helped turn Brunello from a local wine into an international one.
The two stories don’t overlap. The Biondi-Santi line descends from Dr Francesco Tamanti and his children Gaetano and Maria. The Colombini line descends from a different branch, headed by Filandro Tamanti (b. 1755), through Filandro’s son Dr Antonio. The two branches owned land in the same countryside, but they owned it separately.
From a cadastre page to a wine family
This branch is unusual because a single piece of land connects its oldest and newest records. In the Tuscan land survey of about 1820, the owner tables for the Sparampaglia section name “Ermenegildo e Antonio Tamanti di Filandro” (Ermenegildo and Antonio Tamanti, sons of Filandro) as the owners of a large estate at Il Casato. The owner’s parcel-by-parcel reconstruction assigns 98 numbered parcels to the two brothers. One of them, parcel 83, is a farmhouse and stable.
A century later, Il Casato belonged to Giuliana Tamanti Colombini. Her granddaughter Donatella Cinelli Colombini owns it today. Her grandson Stefano Cinelli Colombini runs Fattoria dei Barbi, and he describes Casato as “the centerpiece of the Tamanti lands” (Stefano Cinelli Colombini, correspondence with the owner, August 2026).
What is proven, and what is not
Each link in this chain rests on a different kind of evidence, and some links are firmer than others.
- Documented: in about 1820 Ermenegildo and Dr Antonio Tamanti, sons of Filandro, jointly owned the Il Casato estate (Tavole indicative, Tomo II).
- Documented: Antonio was born on 10 January 1810, the son of Filandro and Teresa (birth act, original on Antenati). He married Giuditta, daughter of Leopoldo, in April 1847 (marriage entry, original on Antenati).
- Published genealogy and family testimony: the line continues through Antonio’s son Francesco Antonio, then Giovanni Tamanti (1881–1916), then Giuliana, who married Giovanni Colombini (Carle, La patria locale, 1996, p. 292). Both of Giuliana’s grandchildren say the same in their own family histories.
- Still open: the legal chain of title that carried Casato from the 1820 brothers down to Giuliana, and the identity of the family Donatella says owned Casato as early as 1592.
Pages in this section
- Giuliana Tamanti Colombini: the woman who joined the two families, her descent from Dr Antonio Tamanti, and what the sources do and do not prove about her parentage.
- Il Casato and Fattoria dei Barbi: the 98-parcel estate of 1820, and how Giovanni and Francesca Colombini made the family a force in modern Brunello.
For the full list of the Tamanti rural holdings in the 1820 survey, including the rest of Ermenegildo and Antonio’s lands, see Tamanti Poderi: The Family’s Lands. The Casato holding has its own page there: Il Casato (Sparampaglia).
Why this branch matters
It is tempting to say that one family invented Brunello, but the evidence points elsewhere. Brunello grew out of a community of growers, landowners, experimenters and merchants, and the Tamanti belong to that community through their family ties. One branch married into the Santi and then the Biondi, and another married into the Colombini. Both went on to shape Montalcino’s wine. The Colombini side stands out for wine tourism, direct sales, exports and the founding of the Brunello Consorzio in 1967 (Stefano Cinelli Colombini, Brunello, ritratti a memoria, 2nd ed., 2021, pp. 97–103).
Behind that modern story is a much older one: a farmhouse and stable at parcel 83, surrounded by fields, vines and woods, owned by two brothers who also held Casa Tamanti in town. That was the courtyard, house, garden and storehouse complex whose footprint researchers are still working to match to today’s Palazzo Tamanti.
Sources on this page
- Catasto Generale della Toscana, Comunità di Montalcino, Tavole indicative, Sparampaglia (section A′), Tomo II: p. 82, p. 83 (Regione Toscana CASTORE)
- Owner’s reconstruction of the Tamanti parcels at Il Casato (map)
- Birth of Antonio Tamanti, 10 January 1810, Nati reg. 61, act 3 (scan; Antenati)
- Marriage of Antonio Tamanti and Giuditta, April 1847, S. Lorenzo in S. Pietro no. 22 (scan; Antenati)
- Luisa Scrivani, c.1835 urban cadastral reconstruction of Casa Tamanti, parcels 568–571 (correspondence, 28 August 2026)
- Lucia Carle, La patria locale. L’identità dei Montalcinesi dal XVI al XX secolo (1996), Tamanti family tree, p. 292
- Stefano Cinelli Colombini, Brunello, ritratti a memoria, 2nd ed. (Fattoria dei Barbi, 2021), pp. 97–103
- Stefano Cinelli Colombini, correspondence with the owner, August 2026
- Donatella Cinelli Colombini, “Donatella Talks About Her Two Wineries” (14 September 2023)