Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Hand harvest into the Montalcino cellar

The harvest comes in by hand at Casato Prime Donne, where Donatella Cinelli Colombini works as winemaker for Donatella Cinelli Colombini in Montalcino. She founded Casato Prime Donne and Fattoria del Colle in 1998 after 14 years in the family business, taking land already marked by history and giving it a production structure with her name on it. Her own line is plain enough to stand without ornament: “First of all, I’m a producer.” The role has always extended beyond the bench. She served as Tourism Councillor at Siena Town Hall from 2001 to 2011, later held leadership roles with Donne del Vino and the Consortium of Orcia Wines, and kept wine, hospitality, and women’s visibility in the same field of work. At Casato Prime Donne, that conviction becomes an operating method. The Montalcino estate is the Brunello house, surrounded by Sangiovese vineyards; Fattoria del Colle, in Trequanda, carries the wider farm life, the villa, the restaurant, the apartments, and the cellar for Orcia DOC, Chianti Superiore, and other Tuscan reds. Two estates, one discipline: production first, then the forms of welcome that make the work legible.

Gravity, cement, native yeast

The method at Casato Prime Donne favors touch over force. The estate works 96 acres of land, with 16 hectares dedicated to Sangiovese for Brunello production, and adopted organic farming methods in 2014. In the cellar, the wine moves by gravity rather than pump, a choice that keeps mechanical stress low and lets extraction stay measured. Fermentation takes place in tronco-conic naked cement tanks, with a pied de cuve and autochthonous yeasts tied to Donatella’s work on native strains in Montalcino. About 20% of the volume begins without commercial yeasts. Maceration runs for approximately 20 days under a closed cap, with pumping over and punching down held to 15 minutes each. The aging program is equally deliberate: Brunello spends at least two years in 500-litre tonneaux before moving into 15-hectolitre casks. The point is not to make oak disappear, but to keep it in proportion to Sangiovese, so cherry, balsamic notes, tannin, and the soil’s more savory register remain in the foreground.

Stone rooms, wind, and cask work

The place keeps two kinds of cellar language close together. One room sits under wooden beams, with the weight of the old stone building around it; another, the Tinaia del Vento, works under an iron roof open on all sides, letting air and season press directly against the vinification space. The historic cellar holds oak casks and barrels on the ground floor, while the vinsantaia keeps its own slower pace for Vinsanto del Chianti DOC from Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia del Chianti. Beyond the cellar, the estate carries the farmhouse vocabulary of this part of Tuscany: a 16th-century villa, a chapel, ancient gardens, a kitchen with a monumental fireplace, and rooms that still feel attached to agricultural work rather than separated from it. Conversation stays low. The vineyard is never far from the glass.

Prime Donne as a working idea

Casato Prime Donne matters because the idea has not stayed symbolic. It is the production site for Brunello di Montalcino Selezione Prime Donne, the bottling that gives the project its most direct form, and it sits inside an estate model where vineyard, cellar, hospitality, and public leadership remain connected. Donatella’s other sentence holds the line: “I see opportunities, paths that others do not see, I do not invent anything.” The close attention now belongs to each new Brunello release from Casato Prime Donne, especially the Selezione Prime Donne.