It Began With a Dream of Independence.
Before Podere 1384 was a destination, it was an idea. Not a business plan — an idea. A vision of a life lived differently: self-sufficient, connected to the land, free from the systems that most of us accept without question.We imagined a large house with land to cultivate. A kind of independence — ethical, energetic, philosophical. A place where life is never at the expense of anyone else, or of the environment that sustains us. We thought it would be private. We thought it would be ours alone. We were wrong about that part. And we are grateful for it.
The Decision to Share
Over the years, as we designed and built, as the vineyards were planted and the vegetable garden took shape, as the suites were finished and the kitchen found its rhythm, we came to understand something important: the dream we were living was too valuable to keep to ourselves.
Podere 1384 was born the day we opened our gates. The independence we sought turned out to be more sustaining when it was shared — with guests from every part of the world, with producers and farmers and chefs, with anyone willing to slow down long enough to pay attention to what was here.
THE NAME
Why 1384?
The number is not a founding date or a house number. It is a year of significance in the history of the land we inhabit. In 1384, the Chianti League received its first official statute from the Republic of Florence. This was the moment when the territory now known as Chianti Classico was formally recognised — defined, protected, and administered as a place of unique value. The League’s emblem: a black rooster on a golden background. That image, with minor variations, remains the symbol of Chianti Classico wine to this day. The Chianti territory was divided into three Terzieri — Terziere di Radda, Terziere di Gaiole, and Terziere di Castellina. Podere 1384 belongs to the Terziere di Castellina. We carry that history in our name as a reminder of where we are and what it means to be here.
THE PLACE
Castellina in Chianti, Tuscany
The estate sits at Località Poggio al Sorbo — on a hillock that you can see from the road, if you know where to look. Fifty hectares of farmland, vineyard, olive grove, and woodland, bordered by the Pesa river and framed on every horizon by the rolling hills that have made this landscape one of the most painted, photographed, and written-about in human history.
Florence is thirty kilometres to the north. Siena is thirty kilometres to the south. We are at the centre of something remarkable — between two of the greatest cities of the Renaissance, in a landscape that gave rise to the aesthetic philosophy that still defines what we mean when we say something is beautiful.
Away from it all. In the centre of it all.
THE TEAM
Tatiana Perna — Co-Founder
Tatiana is the heart of Podere 1384’s hospitality. Her instinct for warmth and her insistence on quality come from a childhood spent watching her father Vittorio run one of Rome’s most respected restaurants for over fifty years. She brings that lineage to everything she oversees at the Podere — from the sourcing of linen to the welcome that greets every arriving guest.
Chef David Targetti — Head of Kitchen
David Targetti is a chef who believes in the primacy of the ingredient. Classically trained, with a sensibility that is modern without being self-conscious, he leads a kitchen that is responsive to the estate and driven by the seasons. At Podere 1384, his greatest collaborator is the garden.
Adriano Zago — Agronomist & Enologist
Adriano is responsible for the health of the land and the quality of what grows on it. His approach is biodynamic — reading the vineyard as a living system rather than a production unit. Under his guidance, the Podere’s wines have been developed from the ground up, using exclusively native varieties in soils that are among the most distinctive in the entire Chianti Classico zone.
OUR VALUES
Authenticity — Nothing Performed, Everything Genuine
The Chianti Classico territory has been romanticised to the point of cliché in some quarters of the travel industry. We resist that. Our wine is good because the soil is good and the farming is honest. Our food tastes the way it does because the ingredients are real. Our welcome is warm because the people extending it actually care. There is no performance here.
Intimacy — Fewer Guests, More Presence
Six rooms was a choice. We could have built more. We chose not to. Every guest who stays here receives something that a larger property simply cannot offer: the feeling that the estate belongs to them, that the team is focused on them, that Tuscany is revealing itself for them specifically. This cannot be replicated at scale.
Sustainability — Not a Word, a Practice
We do not use the word lightly. Sustainability at Podere 1384 means solar energy covering half of our consumption and a target of full independence. It means organic and biodynamic farming from the first season. It means a kitchen that buys locally, composts its waste, and measures its relationship with the land in decades, not financial quarters.
We would like every guest walking through Podere 1384 to feel the sense of this story — and to feel part of it. A story that straddles the past of a unique place in the world and the future that we must build together.
