Tuscany Wine Tours Beyond Chianti
Eighty tours, 25 to 776 EUR. Nine reviews in ten belong to one day-trip page; the three wine towns share the other 4,746.
Nine Tuscan reviews in ten belong to one page. Of the 44,886 reviews on the 80 Tuscany wine tours here, 40,140 sit on the twenty day trips with a winery lunch, and most of those on a single coach day from Florence. The three places where the wine is actually made and poured, Montalcino, Montepulciano and San Gimignano, share the other 4,746. This page is about Tuscany outside Chianti, and it is organised around that split: what each of the four formats costs, where it leaves from, which dates and denominations sit behind the names, what it costs at the estate door, when the harvest and the local feasts fall, and how to choose between them. Chianti has a page of its own and we only point to it. Prices are per person as listed; where a tour is private, the vehicle is usually the unit, and the text says so.
Everything below is read from the listings on the four Tuscany pages on 30 September 2026, twenty tours each, and from the sites of the consortia and estates named in the text. Where a number comes from an estate's own site or a consortium, it says so. Where it comes from a route planner, treat it as a guide and check the operator. Distances marked as straight lines are measured between town centres, so they are what a crow would fly, not what a bus will drive.
Choose a destination in Tuscany
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Tuscany Day Trips with a Winery Lunch
Twenty Tuscany day trips with lunch, 44 to 571 EUR. What the lunch is, which trips start in Rome, why one coach carries 60% of the reviews and how to tell…
20 experiences -
Montalcino & Brunello Wine Tours
Twenty Montalcino Brunello tours compared: a 32.50 EUR tasting, a 190 EUR small group from Siena and private cars up to 776 EUR, with door prices.
20 experiences -
San Gimignano & Vernaccia Wine Tours
Twenty San Gimignano wine tours compared: tasting rooms at 48 EUR, farm lunches at 68, a Vespa day at 134.
20 experiences -
Montepulciano Wine Tours
Twenty Montepulciano wine tours compared: 25 EUR farm tastings, a 159 EUR e-bike ride, private days up to 693.
20 experiences
Wine Tours Experiences in Tuscany
8-Seat Minivan Tour from Florence: Monteriggioni, Siena, Chianti Wine Lunch, San Gimignano
Eight seats in a minivan, with a Tuscan meal and seven wines, olive oils and balsamic vinegar at a Chianti winery. Leaves Porta Romana at 9am, back by 6pm.
Biodynamic Winery Tour and Seated Six-Wine Tasting at Corte Pavone, Montalcino
Six wines poured at a seated tasting, each with a short introduction, after a walk through a biodynamic estate with views over Montalcino from Corte Pavone.
Brunello and Vino Nobile Tour: Montalcino, Montepulciano and Pienza Pecorino
Both Sangiovese-based reds in one day, with producers to meet in Montalcino and Montepulciano and a Pecorino tasting in Pienza across the Val d'Orcia.
Brunello di Montalcino Day Tour from Siena: Three Wineries, Lunch, Sant'Antimo Abbey
Limited to eight guests, this day from Siena visits three Brunello producers, includes a traditional Tuscan lunch at a winery and ends at Sant'Antimo Abbey.
Brunello di Montalcino Wine Tour from Siena Railway Station: Two Winery Tastings
Two tastings of Sangiovese-only Brunello at two local wineries, then free time around the fortress village of Montalcino, leaving from Siena railway station.
Brunello Wine Tasting with a Sommelier at Castello Tricerchi, Montalcino, 1.5 Hours
An expert sommelier guides the pours at Castello Tricerchi, a medieval castle in Montalcino, in a tasting of some of the best Tuscan wines that lasts 1.5 hours.
Brunello Wine Tour from Siena with a Licensed Sommelier Driver, Lunch and Boutique Cellars
The driver is a licensed sommelier who picks small boutique cellars and a lunch off the beaten path, in groups or privately on request, leaving from Siena.
Casale Terzo Tasting of Three Organic Wines and Estate Olive Oil, Val d'Elsa
A historic rural house in Val d'Elsa, home to two organic wine families, pours its own wines and olive oil, with San Gimignano and Casole d'Elsa nearby.
Casa Lucii Organic Winery near San Gimignano: Estate Walk, Vernaccia and Food Pairing
Vernaccia, Chianti and Vin Santo poured with wood-fired pizza, cheeses and cured meats after a walk through an organic estate's garden, orchard and cellar.
Castello Tricerchi Brunello Tasting and Tuscan Lunch in a Medieval Castle near Montalcino
A Brunello tasting and a typical Tuscan three-course lunch inside a medieval castle, with guests meeting at Castello Tricerchi in the Altesi area of Montalcino.
Cesani Winery Tasting in Pancole: Five Wines, Olive Oil and Pecorino
The Cesani family winery, 5 km from San Gimignano, pours two Vernaccia and three reds with olive oil and pecorino, and shows the organic-grape cellar.
Chianti Vespa Ride near San Gimignano with Tuscan Lunch, Three Wines and Olive Oil
A driving test and safety briefing come first, then a 50cc Vespa ride through Chianti to a family winery lunch with three wines, solo or as a passenger.
CiaoFlorence Val d'Orcia Day Tour from Florence: Montalcino, Pienza and Montepulciano
Two wine tastings, a Brunello cellar in Montalcino and the hills filmed for Gladiator, with a local guide on the coach from Piazzale Montelungo in Florence.
Comparative Italian Wine Tasting with a Sommelier at Perbacco Wine Club, Montepulciano
A sommelier pours wines from the top Italian regions side by side, for couples and friends, in a small club just off the main square in Montepulciano.
Evening Chianti Winery Dinner from San Gimignano: Cellar Tour, Tasting and Ribollita
A welcome drink, a cellar walk and a seasonal dinner of ribollita and grilled farm meats, served at a Chianti winery and starting from Piazzale Montemaggio.
Family Vineyard Visit near San Gimignano with Appetizers and Four Wines
A small family vineyard with a cellar visit, an introduction to Italian wine rules, local appetizers and four estate wines, one kilometer from San Gimignano.
Fattoria Svetoni Winery Visit and 3-Wine Tasting with Olive Oil, Montepulciano Countryside
Winery and cellar tour at Fattoria Svetoni, then a tasting of three estate wines including Vino Nobile DOCG and the estate's own extra virgin olive oil.
Five-Wine Tasting with Food Pairings at Rocca di Montestaffoli, San Gimignano
Tasting room inside the Rocca di Montestaffoli: five wines with food pairings and water included, dietary needs handled if noted at booking, children welcome.
Florence Day Trip to Monteriggioni, Siena, San Gimignano and a Chianti Vineyard Tasting
Pick a guided or free-roaming Siena, then taste wine, charcuterie and oils at a Chianti vineyard. Starts at Monteriggioni's walls; 10.5 to 11 hours in all.
Florence Small Group of 6: Boutique Brunello Farm Lunch, Val d'Orcia and Montepulciano
Six guests at most share a guided lunch-tasting at a boutique Montalcino winery-farm, with Gladiator scenery and Montepulciano on the route from Florence.
Full-Day Small-Group Tour of Two Boutique Wineries near Montepulciano, with 3-Course Lunch
A small group, a local guide and two boutique Montepulciano red wineries with tastings, then a historic town cellar and a three-course lunch at a Nobile winery.
Full-Day Tour from Siena: Montepulciano Lunch, Pienza and Brunello Tasting in Montalcino
Two guided wine tastings, a pici lunch in Montepulciano and free time in Pienza fill one day out of Siena, ending with a Brunello tasting at a local winery.
Gray Line Florence Tuscany Day Tour: San Gimignano, Monteriggioni, Chianti Lunch, Siena
Eleven hours by coach with a zero-mile three-course lunch and a guided tasting of three Chianti wines. The Monteriggioni stop runs only from April to October.
ItaliaTours Rome to Florence and Tuscany by High-Speed Train, with San Gimignano Winery
Swaps the 4-hour bus for a 90-minute high-speed train, then adds a Florence walk and a family winery tasting above San Gimignano. Van transfers in Tuscany.
Ratings collected by Viator, Tripadvisor and Civitatis
Tuscany wine tours beyond Chianti: four places, four prices
Tuscany on this site is a set of four pages, and they sell four different things. Day trips with a winery lunch are sightseeing days in which a cellar is one stop among several. Montalcino is the Brunello country, built on long days and private cars. Montepulciano is the quiet one, with the thinnest competition and the most unusual formats, from an e-bike to a sommelier's cellar under the old town. San Gimignano is short and cheap: a median of 1.8 hours and 65 EUR, often a tasting room or a farm rather than a tour in the usual sense.
Chianti, which most people picture first, is deliberately not here. It has its own page, with five formats and its own denomination rules. What you read below is everything else Tuscany sells.
Nobody goes to Tuscany for one wine. The mistake is booking one format and expecting the feel of another.
Read the chart from the bottom. San Gimignano's middle half is squeezed between 50 and 90 EUR, because almost everything there is a tasting of one to two hours. Montepulciano runs from 25 EUR for a tasting to 693 EUR for a private day. The day trips cluster near 117 EUR but stretch from 44 to 571. And Montalcino is where the price climbs, median 225 EUR, because the typical Brunello listing is an eight hour day and a driver. The spread is the real information here: a median alone would send you to the wrong page.
| Format | Tours | Median (EUR) | Median length | Lunch included | Reviews | Biggest operator's share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day trips with a winery lunch | 20 | 117 | 10.8 hours | 65% | 40,140 | 60% (one operator) |
| Montalcino and Brunello | 20 | 225 | 8 hours | 60% | 2,700 | 40% |
| Montepulciano | 20 | 103 | 2.8 hours | 40% | 730 | 25% |
| San Gimignano and Vernaccia | 20 | 65 | 1.8 hours | 45% | 1,316 | 25% |
Pick a format
Four pages, each with its own twenty tours and the price chart behind them.
Tuscany day trips with a winery lunch
Siena, San Gimignano and Pisa in a day; 10.8 hours, 117 EUR median.
Montalcino and Brunello
Brunello country; 8 hours, 225 EUR median, 40% private.
San Gimignano and Vernaccia
A white wine in a tower town; 1.8 hours, 65 EUR median.
Montepulciano
Vino Nobile and the widest range of formats; 103 EUR median.
Where the wine is, and where tours leave from
The map shows a triangle with a long arm. Florence and Siena are where tours start, Pisa is a day-trip stop, and the wine lies in between and below them. Measured in straight lines, San Gimignano is 37 km from Florence and 28 from Siena, which is why it appears on so many day trips. Siena is 50 km from Florence, and the listings say to allow about an hour for the drive. Montalcino is 32 km from Siena and 82 from Florence; Montepulciano is 45 km from Siena and 86 from Florence; the two are just 24 km apart, with Pienza between them, 15 km from one and 8 from the other.
Those are crow-flies numbers, and the roads wind. Montalcino is about 40 km from Siena by road, a little under an hour by car according to route planners.
Siena is the better base for the south
Of the Montalcino and Montepulciano listings, five name Siena as the start in the title and three name Florence. The one with the most reviews, 1,030 at 4.9, is a small group of no more than eight that meets at Piazza San Domenico in Siena, visits three wineries, includes a lunch at a winery and stops at the abbey of Sant'Antimo, for 190 EUR over nine hours. Hotel pickup is not part of it.
From Siena the wine is about 40 km away. The three listings whose titles name Florence run 11 to 12 hours and cost 110, 580 and 599 EUR, and two of them are private.
Four denominations, four dates
The names on the tours are appellations, and each has a written rulebook and a date. Brunello di Montalcino is made from Sangiovese and nothing else. Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is built on Sangiovese too, known locally as Prugnolo Gentile. Vernaccia di San Gimignano is a white wine from a grape of the same name, with up to 15% of other white varieties allowed, and its vineyards may not climb above 500 metres. Vernaccia and Nobile became DOC in 1966, and Brunello and Nobile were among the first wines in Italy to reach DOCG, in 1980.
How the three wine towns earned their names
Dates from the consortia and from the rulebook of the Vernaccia.
The origins
1965
Consorzio del Vino Nobile founded
Montepulciano's producers organise a year before the DOC decree.
3 March 1966
Vernaccia di San Gimignano becomes a DOC
The rulebook on the Consortium's site cites a presidential decree of 3 March 1966.
12 July 1966
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano becomes a DOC
The Consortium gives the date as 12 July.
The growth
1 July 1980
Brunello and Nobile reach DOCG
Both are listed from that date, among the first wines in Italy to reach the top tier.
9 July 1993
Vernaccia di San Gimignano becomes a DOCG
The step up from DOC, per trade press.
Today
2025
Nobile 'Pieve' reaches the market
A new tier of Vino Nobile, first vintage 2021, drawn from twelve sub-zones named after old parishes.
| Denomination | Main grape | Vineyard area | Volume, recent year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brunello di Montalcino | Sangiovese | About 2,000 ha of Brunello; Rosso di Montalcino 520 ha in December 2023 | About 6.5 million a year of Brunello (trade press) |
| Vino Nobile di Montepulciano | Sangiovese (Prugnolo Gentile) | About 1,200 ha DOCG and 390 ha of Rosso DOC | 6.7 million Nobile and 2.3 million Rosso in 2024 |
| Vernaccia di San Gimignano | Vernaccia, white | About 750 ha of DOCG Vernaccia, in a municipality with 2,000 ha of vines | 3.85 million litres in the 2025 vintage |
Montalcino's soils are galestro and alberese, and the municipality covers 24,000 ha of which only 15% is planted with vines. The other 85% is not vineyard at all. Altitudes run from 120 to 650 m and rainfall is about 700 mm a year (Consortium).
Getting there from Florence, Siena and Rome
| From | To | How | Time | Fare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Florence | San Gimignano | Bus 131 to Poggibonsi, then bus 130 or 133 | 1.5 to 2 hours | About 6.80 EUR by bus; 10.50 with the train |
| Florence | Siena | Regional train or express bus | About 1 h 15 to 1 h 30 | 7 to 10 EUR by rail, 8.40 by bus |
| Siena | Montalcino | Bus 112 and 114, change at Buonconvento | About 2 hours | 3 to 5 EUR |
| Florence | Montepulciano | Train to Chiusi-Chianciano Terme, then a local train | About 2 h 21, then 13 minutes | Long leg 18 to 40 USD; local leg from 3.01 EUR |
| Rome | Montepulciano and Tuscany | Day-trip coach; six of the twenty listings start here | 10 to 12 hours | 99 to 280 EUR |
The buses and trains get you to the towns. They do not get you to the cellars. Castello Banfi, near Montalcino, says on its own site that you need a car to go from the castle to the cellar, about 4 km. Without a car, the realistic options are a tour, a driver, or a bicycle: Montepulciano has an e-bike tour at 159 EUR with two cellars and eight wines, arriving at the showroom at 10:30.
Notice the last row. Six of the twenty day trips leave from Rome, at 99 to 280 EUR, and they run 10 to 12 hours: Tuscany is sold as a day from the capital, and you will spend most of that day in a coach.
Do you need to book, and what does a tasting cost at the door?
| Estate | Town | What is on offer | Price | Booking |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Castello Banfi | Montalcino | Public tour; a longer tour with lunch | 60 EUR; 125 to 140 EUR with lunch | Compulsory |
| Il Poggione | Sant'Angelo in Colle | Paid visit, in Italian or English | Not published | By appointment, up to 50 people |
| Contucci | Montepulciano | Cellars in the old town | Not published | By phone or email |
| Avignonesi, Le Capezzine | Montepulciano | 'Tour and Taste', about two hours, up to 12 people | Reported at 45 to 55 EUR (listing sites) | Online |
| Teruzzi | San Gimignano | Tasting of three to five wines with boards | Reported about 30 EUR (listing site) | Recommended |
Every estate on this list wants the visit arranged beforehand, by appointment, phone, email or online booking, and Banfi, with the highest published price, makes it compulsory. Where a price is published, the door price for a proper visit is 30 to 60 EUR. Against that, a Montalcino listing on this site at 32.50 EUR is a tasting at the door rate, while the 190 EUR small-group day buys three wineries, a winery lunch and the drive. The difference is the driver and the meal, not the wine.
At Banfi a public tour costs 60 EUR before lunch. The 190 EUR day from Siena is three cellars and the road between them for a little over three times that.
Florence is the gateway, but not the base
Most people reading this are in Florence, and Florence is where the day trips collect their crowds: a 7:45 meeting at the station, back at about 8:30 pm. Its usefulness is the reach. San Gimignano is 37 km away, Siena 50, Pisa 69. The southern wine towns are twice as far.
That is fine for the day trip, which is built to cover distance, and a poor trade for a Brunello day, where the drive eats what the cellar was for. If Montalcino or Montepulciano is the reason you came, sleep in Siena or in the hills, and keep Florence for the cathedral.
When to go
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
The harvest is the big fact. Brunello picking began on 7 September in 2026, a week earlier than in 2025, and lasted about three weeks (trade press quoting the Consortium's president). Vernaccia is picked from roughly mid September to mid October. During picking cellars are at work, so book two weeks ahead rather than two days.
The calendar has fixed points too. Benvenuto Brunello is held in November 2026, its 35th edition; Red Montalcino on 2 October 2026, its fifth. Montepulciano's Bravio delle Botti, a barrel-rolling race between the districts, is held on the last Sunday of August.
Questions about Tuscany wine tours beyond Chianti
Montalcino or Montepulciano?
Montalcino is the pricier, longer day, a median of 225 EUR and 8 hours. Montepulciano is the cheaper, shorter one, 103 EUR and 2.8 hours, with fewer rivals and more unusual formats. Both are Sangiovese, and Siena is a fair base for either.
Can I do Tuscany wine tasting in a day from Rome?
Yes: six of the twenty day trips start in Rome, run 10 to 12 hours and cost 99 to 280 EUR. Expect a coach, a winery lunch and a town or two, not a wine-first day.
Do I need a car to visit Montalcino or Montepulciano?
You need one, or a tour, for the cellars. Buses and trains reach the towns; estates such as Banfi say the cellar is 4 km from the castle and needs a car. The alternative is an organised day, or an e-bike tour in Montepulciano.
Is San Gimignano only a tourist stop?
No. Its white wine, Vernaccia, has its own rulebook and its own DOCG since 1993, and the listings on the San Gimignano page are mostly short tastings and farm lunches at a median of 65 EUR and 1.8 hours. The towers are the backdrop, not the point.
Comparing with Chianti?
Chianti has its own page, with five formats and the rules of the Classico zone.
Plan your trip
Guides that apply to this destination.
When to go
A month-by-month climate matrix for 28 wine destinations, with the harvest windows we could verify.
Plan your wine tour
Nine decisions in order: tour or car, booking, what to wear and what to check on a listing.
Chianti from Florence
Half day, full day or another part of Tuscany: how to pick your day.
Data verified on. Tours, prices and reviews read on 30 Sep 2026 from the four Tuscany pages. Denominations, areas and events: the consortia and estates named. Fares: route planners.