Our story

I am a farmer with the presumption being a “real one”, who has cultivated truly the earth, sweating by day and night; my job has been without rest, without futile amusement, the only pleasure, a satisfying one, has been to see grow plants seeds, and animals without a moment of the day passing in which I have not thought of how to raise in the best way my plants and to protect them from the rigours of the climate, how to keep away the larvae, the aphids or the peronospora.
A job that permits few errors: the risk, the pain is to destroy an entire harvest, to decimate your live stock, or to see the plants die. I have worked, spied on and protected, every day my land cultivating it together with my character sometimes not seeing what else I had around me.
Fortunately my wife, junior school teacher, and my daughters, not by chance one a teacher and the other agronomist, have always understood and shared my passion. The earth is a whirlpool of energy, must be generous with the earth, to sacrifice oneself for it. Of course I am not a figure for a newspaper cover with easy smiles and false slogan about a nature that does not exist.
I was simply born with the sense of belonging to this earth more than to my mother. Fortunately also the earth belonged to me and together we have formed a beautiful binomial. I have grown up with the love for the earth.
I have learned to walk in the fields that before were my father’s and before him belonged to my grandfather.
The Pomponi’s estate dates back to the year l856; then in Tuscany was the sharecropping system, and the peasants cultivated our land until the last grain of earth, then, with the exodus from the countryside, in l980 even the last sharecropper had gone. I owe a lot of what I am now to my father and to our farmers; they have supplied me with experience and they have taught me the respect for nature, nature that if it is loved, repays and answers with generosity to our attentions.
My entrance into the adult world takes place when I am 8, because at that time I managed on my own certain matters and some transactions; my father had great faith in me. I estimated the cattle and I acquired them. I was already in a position to estimating just by looking at the animals their weight. I was greatly thought of by the peasants, they considered me one of them.
My future was written and my heart told me that I had to study agriculture; therefore, after finishing the agronomy high school, I went to the Agricultural University of Perugia. Once home, to the passion and the experience of the peasants, I accosted the technique learned in books and replaced my father in the conduction of the farm. It was the l952. Today, if I look back, I see how my land in this time has changed.
The families of peasants are no longer here; instead I am still in my place and at the age of 74 I still manage my farm with an agricultural worker who is a former-sharecropper. This is all possible because the farm has modern machinery, but my relationship with nature has remained the same; the seasons do not change and still get excited by the seeds it in winter, the green of the growing wheat in spring, the golden yellow of the wheat ears and the sunflowers in summer, the brown of the ploughing in autumn.
Today the estate extends over 4OO hectares in the territory of San Casciano dei Bagni and of Radicofani. Part of the property is enclosed inside the Natural and Cultural Artistic Park of the "Val d’Orcia", a landscape of extraordinary charm.
Hills, crevices, oak forests, country houses and the cypresses that characterize this territory perfumed and coloured by brooms, hedges of wild roses and hawthorn. The main cultivation is of cereals (hard wheat, barley and spelt) alternated with pulses, alfalfa and clover. Ten hectares are of olive grove with the traditional cultivations from Tuscany (Frantoio, Leccino, Moraiolo and Pendolino) for the production of an excellent extra virgin olive oil with typical geographic indication (I.G.P. Toscano). Three hectares are of vineyard with the typical native varieties (Sangiovese, Procanico and Malvasia).
The vineyard is cultivated according to the rules of production of the Orcia wine. All the cultivations are realized in the respect of the environment, following the indications of integrated agriculture. Oil and wine can be tasted and bought directly in my home. In the 2OOl I have decided to place side by side agriculture, and the farm holidays activity; it has not been an easy choice, because of the consistency and the entity of the investment, however my desire to make live again the old country houses of the estate, a time lived by the numerous families of the peasants, theatre of laughs and jokes near the fireplace in the long and cold night during the winter urged me to continue. I have begun restoring “San Lorenzo”, the more ancient house and nearest the village that I possess; soon the work on the country house called “Collolungo” located on a panoramic hill will also be finished.
I oversee myself all the steps of the restoration, from the plans to the execution of the jobs. I get help from my son in law, an engineer, and from my daughters.
To see those country houses return to new life is a great satisfaction for all my family, and surely a meaningful architectonic and landscape recovery. The opening of “San Lorenzo” took place in April 2OO3. During the summer period we have had the pleasure of receiving numerous guests, mainly foreign, who living in the cottage have had a way to appreciate the authenticity and the spectacular wonder of our territory: a unique, unrepeatable landscape, that renews itself discreetly and maintains intact the charm and the spirit of people from long ago, of traditional country houses that live to the shadow of the cypresses and of the oaks, now, just as they did many years ago.

Snapshot from our family photo book