Pelagrilli, one of the oldest Tamanti farms
The Siro Pacenti estate, north of Montalcino, was born in 1970 at Pelagrilli. Long before it became one of Montalcino’s celebrated Brunello addresses, Pelagrilli was a Tamanti farm: it appears in the family’s hands in 1692, in 1820 and in 1868. The 1820 farmhouse lies about 45 metres from the estate’s present address.
The Tamanti years
Pelagrilli is among the six Tamanti farms in the Sienese fiscal survey of 1692 and the nine Tamanti farms in Luisa Scrivani’s tables of 1841. In the 1820 cadastre the brothers Ermenegildo and Dr. Antonio Tamanti held about 45 parcels in the Pelagrilli section, and Petronilla Canali ne’ Santi, the mother-in-law of Maria Tamanti, held another 22 hectares there. In 1868 Pelagrilli and the neighbouring Gambocci were among Ermenegildo’s sharecropped farms. A stream still called Gambocci, north-east of Pelagrilli, places that second Tamanti farm in the next valley.
How it left the Tamanti
“The Pacenti estate was born in 1970 with Siro’s purchase of the property north of Montalcino (Pelagrilli)”, the estate writes, without naming the seller. The land register shows that in December 1970 the Pelagrilli farmhouse was bought from a Montalcino farming family by the brothers Primo and Rosildo Pacenti and Siro’s wife; Siro Pacenti’s share was registered in 1976, and another part of the house passed to the Pacenti in 1988. Giancarlo Pacenti remembers that his father and his uncles bought their parts of Pelagrilli from two members of that same farming family. The farm had therefore left the Tamanti before 1970, and the step between the Tamanti and the family who sold to the Pacenti is still to be found. The Pacenti still own it.
From cattle and cereals to barriques
Brian Pasch met Giancarlo Pacenti at Pelagrilli on 15 October 2026. Siro Pacenti, who signed the founding act of the Consorzio del Brunello in 1967, was above all a farmer: he grew cereals and raised cattle, and was known for an excellent table wine. His son Giancarlo, well educated and curious, went to Bordeaux to study how the great châteaux made their wine. His first vintage was 1988; he added the Piancornello vineyards south of the town in the early 1990s, and he ages his wines only in small French barriques rather than the large Slavonian oak casks traditional in Montalcino. On land the Tamanti had farmed through sharecroppers for at least 175 years, a farmer’s son made one of the most modern Brunellos of his generation.
Timeline
- 1692 Pelagrilli among the Tamanti farms.
- 1820 Ermenegildo and Dr. Antonio Tamanti, about 45 parcels.
- 1841 One of the nine Tamanti farms in Scrivani’s tables.
- 1868 Ermenegildo’s sharecropped farm.
- 1868–1970 Sold out of the family; by 1970 owned by a Montalcino farming family.
- 1970 The Pacenti family buy Pelagrilli (December); Siro Pacenti’s share registered in 1976.
- 1988 Giancarlo Pacenti’s first vintage, after time studying winemaking in Bordeaux; aged in French barriques. The Pacenti family today.
What may survive
The 1820 farmhouse stands within metres of the estate’s address, so the buildings that the Tamanti sharecroppers worked from may still be part of the estate.
More on this story: Pelagrilli in Tamanti Poderi.
Sources
Luisa Scrivani, 1841 census tables; Lucia Bonelli Conenna, Il contado senese alla fine del XVII secolo (1990); Catasto Generale della Toscana (1820), Montalcino, owner tables; Gazzetta Ufficiale, 22 September 1868; Regione Toscana and Agenzia delle Entrate map services; Siro Pacenti, “La proprietà”; historical land-register extract, Foglio 66, particella 7; the author’s visit to Siro Pacenti and conversation with Giancarlo Pacenti, 15 October 2026.
This page is independent family-history research by Palazzo Tamanti, drawn from the Palazzo Tamanti storybook (October 2026). It is not written or endorsed by the winery. All Montalcino winery origin stories · Tamanti family history.