Tuscany, Properly: A Stay at COMO Castello Del Nero

By The Wadsworth Edit

Let's be honest. Tuscany is one of those destinations that has been photographed, painted, and romanticised so many times that it almost feels like a cliché before you arrive. Rolling hills. Cypress trees. A glass of something red. You've seen it a hundred times.

And then you actually get there, and you understand completely why nobody can stop talking about it.

The drive from Florence sets the tone immediately. Forty minutes south through the Chianti wine region, where the road winds through valleys stitched together with vines, olive groves, and hilltop villages that look exactly like they did five hundred years ago. You pass through Greve in Chianti, through hamlets with names that sound like something from a Renaissance manuscript, and just when the landscape reaches peak impossibly-beautiful, a stone driveway appears. At the end of it: COMO Castello Del Nero.

A 12th-century castle. A Michelin-starred restaurant. One of the great wine regions of the world literally on the doorstep. We'll take it.

The Arrival

First impressions matter, and COMO Castello Del Nero absolutely understands this. The castle itself is dramatic, ancient stone walls draped in climbing greenery, a facade that has been weathering Tuscan winters since the 1100s, and interiors that feel like a collaboration between centuries. Milanese designer Paola Navone restored the property, blending medieval frescoes and vaulted ceilings with contemporary Italian interiors, and the result is a space that feels deeply rooted in history but entirely free of mustiness. There's nothing fusty about COMO Castello Del Nero. Just beautiful, considered, quietly confident luxury.

The 50 rooms and suites include Heritage Suites adorned with original 18th-century frescoes, oak-beamed ceilings, terracotta floors, marble bathrooms, and panoramic views across vineyards and cypress groves. Rooms here don't just have a view, they frame the view, the way a good painting frames its subject. You'll find yourself sitting at the window with your morning coffee and losing twenty minutes to the hills.

The Chianti Effect

Here's what nobody tells you about the Chianti wine region: it's not just a wine region. It's a whole world. Characterised by sprawling vineyards and a history of wine production dating back 2,500 years, Chianti is the kind of place where every drive is scenic, every lunch lasts longer than planned, and every glass of wine comes with a story.

COMO Castello Del Nero leans into this beautifully. The hotel's sommelier leads expert hour-long tasting sessions covering Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino, one of Italy's most prestigious DOCG wines, and the so-called 'Super Tuscans', the bold red blends born in the 1980s that broke the rules and became legends in the process. This isn't a perfunctory hotel wine tasting. It's a proper education, served with excellent aperitivo and the kind of easy conversation that only happens when a knowledgeable host genuinely loves their subject.

And the wine experiences extend well beyond the castle walls. The hotel can arrange a full e-bike cycling tour through Chianti's rolling hills, winding through scenic backroads and charming villages before ending with a winery visit, wine tasting, and a traditional Tuscan lunch. For those who prefer their exploration with a little more style, there's also the option to ride through Tuscany's hills on a classic Vespa, passing through medieval villages and vineyards before lunch and wine tasting in the Chianti region. Or, if you want to lean fully into the fantasy, a self-drive tour through the Chianti countryside in a classic Fiat 500, stopping for a traditional lunch, wine tasting, and visits to the region's most charming villages.

And yes, the Fiat 500 is the correct choice.

Green Gold: The Olive Oil Story

This is the detail that surprises people, and it absolutely shouldn't be skipped.

COMO Castello Del Nero produces its own olive oil on the estate, and Chianti's extra virgin olive oils are typically greener and more intense than you'd expect, with distinctive aromas of artichoke, almond, freshly cut grass, and balsamic or vegetal notes. The groves you can see from your room aren't just scenery. They're working.

The flagship experience is what the hotel calls Green Gold. It takes guests through every stage of producing extra virgin olive oil from their very own olive tree, and while the harvested oil is being bottled, a guided tasting session of Chianti olive oils runs alongside it, with an introduction to COMO Castello Del Nero's own production system. It's hands-on, unhurried, and the kind of experience that fundamentally changes how you think about the bottle of olive oil sitting on your kitchen bench at home.

For those who'd prefer the tasting without the harvest, a standalone one-hour olive oil tasting is available, pairing a curated selection of fine Italian oils with local pecorino cheese, honey, toasted homemade bread, the classic Tuscan fettunta, and two glasses of Chianti Classico. It is, in short, a very good hour.

And the olive oil story doesn't end at the table. The COMO Shambhala Signature treatment is a full-body ritual using Tuscan lavender and olive oil produced on the estate itself, which means the same oil that flavours your lunch is also the one restoring your skin in the spa. It's a small detail, but it says everything about the way this property thinks about its place in the landscape. Nothing is incidental. Everything connects.

The grape vines and olive trees surrounding the property

Into the Forest: Truffle Hunting

Before the wine, though, the truffles. The hotel can arrange a truffle hunt in the local forest with a professional truffle hunter, followed by a truffle-based lunch at the Pavilion restaurant overlooking the olive trees and vineyards. It sounds like the kind of experience that could easily tip into theatre, but it absolutely doesn't. Out in the forest with an expert and their very motivated dog, you quickly understand why truffles command the prices they do, and why finding one feels unreasonably satisfying. The woods of Castello Del Nero are home to three types of truffle: the black winter truffle with its intense aroma and notes of turnip and hazelnut; the hooked truffle, reminiscent of porcini and parmesan; and the summer truffle, with a distinct character somewhere between the two. The lunch that follows, featuring whatever the morning produced, is one of those meals you'll be describing to people for years.

Beyond the Estate

The position of COMO Castello Del Nero is, honestly, a little unfair on every other property in the region. Just 30 minutes from Florence and 40 minutes from Siena by car, it operates as a perfect base for both cities without feeling like either.

Florence needs no introduction, the Uffizi, the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, Brunelleschi's dome rising over terracotta rooftops, but it rewards revisiting on your own terms rather than on a group tour. The hotel's concierge can arrange private access to galleries, skip-the-queue entry, and guided walks that take you into the artisan workshops of the Santo Spirito district, where leatherworkers, mosaic artists, and jewellers have been quietly perfecting their craft for generations. There's also a food-focused tour of Florence's historic shops and the Central Market, sampling everything from lampredotto to gelato, paired with Chianti wine. A morning very well spent.

Siena is different, darker, more medieval, more intense. The Piazza del Campo is one of the great public spaces in Europe, and the city's neighbourhood rivalries give it an energy unlike anywhere else in Tuscany. In 2026, the hotel has secured rare access to Siena's Palio on July 1st and 2nd, the kind of experience that doesn't come through a standard search, and exactly what a good travel advisor exists to know about.

For those who want to go further afield, the hilltop towers of San Gimignano and the extraordinary UNESCO-listed Val d'Orcia landscape are both within easy driving distance. The region rewards slow, unscheduled exploration. Let the concierge build the framework and then be willing to stop wherever looks interesting. In Tuscany, wherever looks interesting almost always is.

The Table (Because in Tuscany, Everything Leads Back to the Table)

It would be remiss to write about COMO Castello Del Nero without spending real time on the food. La Torre, the hotel's Michelin-starred restaurant, is housed in the castle's original medieval stables. Executive Chef Giovanni Luca Di Pirro leads the kitchen, showcasing the finest Tuscan produce through inventive Italian cuisine. Menus shift with the seasons, but the philosophy is constant: the best ingredients from the land immediately surrounding you, handled with skill and served with care.

The resort produces its own olive oil, wine, and flour for internal use, and maintains a chef's garden where seasonal vegetables are grown on site, which means that when they talk about local and seasonal, it is not a marketing line. It's the literal truth. The Pavilion, the hotel's al fresco dining option, is where lazy lunches stretch into early evening and the afternoon light does things to the Chianti hills that make you question why you live anywhere else. La Taverna, more informal and more convivial, is where you end up on the second night feeling entirely at home.

If you want to get hands-on, cooking classes are hosted by Chef Giovanni Luca Di Pirro himself, using the finest Tuscan ingredients including the freshest produce from the kitchen garden, and you eat whatever you make for lunch, which is an excellent incentive to pay attention. Gelato-making is also on offer, led by Sergio Dondoli of San Gimignano, one of just ten remaining Master Gelato Makers in the world. Not a bad way to spend a morning.

The Wellness Piece

COMO Shambhala operates at a level above what you typically find attached to a hotel. Facilities include a gym and thermal suites, an invigorating ice fountain, sauna, aromatic steam room, and heated hydrotherapy pool, with the relaxation area offering panoramic views across the surrounding vineyards and olive groves. Treatments are bespoke and draw on COMO's signature holistic philosophy, with the added distinction that many of the ingredients, the lavender, the olive oil, come directly from the estate. A morning in the spa here, followed by lunch on the terrace with a glass of Chianti Classico, is the definition of a day well spent.

For the more active, padel courts sit against the backdrop of the Tuscan hills, and hot air balloon rides float above the Tuscan countryside at dawn, followed by breakfast and sparkling wine, a genuinely spectacular way to understand the scale and beauty of the landscape you've been driving through.

The Bottom Line

Tuscany is endlessly replicated and almost impossible to get wrong, but COMO Castello Del Nero gets it profoundly right. It combines everything the region does best: extraordinary wine, exceptional food, ancient landscape, the world's best olive oil, and the particular kind of beauty that makes you slow down whether you mean to or not. It then wraps all of that in genuine five-star luxury, thoughtful service, and an experience programme that could fill a fortnight.

Five nights is the sweet spot. Enough time to do Florence properly, lose an afternoon in Siena, spend a morning truffle hunting, do the olive oil tasting and the wine tasting and probably both twice, and still have days where you do nothing at all except sit by the pool and let Tuscany work its magic.

It will. It always does.

The Dining room. Taking you back in time.

The Wadsworth Edit arranges stays at COMO Castello Del Nero including bespoke itineraries, private experiences, and access to Virtuoso benefits. Get in touch to start planning your Tuscany.