Castello di Poggio alle Mura, Montalcino, in the hamlet below a castle the estate’s own sustainability report dates to the ninth to thirteenth centuries and its museum page calls fourteenth-century. The wine estate was founded in 1978 by the Italian-American brothers John and Harry Mariani; the hotel, Il Borgo, opened in March 2007 with fourteen rooms, five of them suites. It is the register’s case of a wine importer buying the source and building the house last.
The house
The vineyard came first and remains the larger business. The Mariani family “founded Castello Banfi at Montalcino in 1978”. By 2010 the company reported “850 hectares under vine” at Montalcino and 46 in Piedmont, with about eleven million bottles a year. Its own figures do not settle. The 2016 sustainability report describes a property of 2,830 hectares in one passage and 3,100 in its “Banfi in numbers”; the same document gives 959 hectares of vineyard in the figures and “more than 1,000 hectares” in the chairmen’s letter. In December 2025 Cristina Mariani-May, the chief executive, described 2,900 hectares “between vineyards, olive groves, arable land and natural areas”.
The castle was bought twice within living memory. Its first official reference is 1318; Giovanni Mastropaolo bought it in 1959; Banfi acquired it in 1983, when it “became part of the Banfi winery”, and restored it at once. Il Borgo opened in March 2007 in the hamlet below it, with fourteen rooms including five suites — though the same report elsewhere describes two rooms, twelve suites and a junior suite. La Taverna serves lunch under the vaulted former barrel cellars; La Sala dei Grappoli serves dinner and carries one Michelin star. Inside the castle are the Bottle and Glass Museum, “named after Giovanni F. Mariani”, and, under the north wing, the Balsameria.
What distinguishes it
The estate was bought by the wine’s American importer Castello Banfi was founded at Montalcino in 1978 by the Italian-American brothers John and Harry Mariani — an acquisition made from the market end of the trade rather than from the land. The company remains family-controlled: Cristina Mariani-May is described in December 2025 as its chief executive. The house exists because the importer bought the source.
The hotel came twenty-nine years after the vineyard The estate dates from 1978, the castle was acquired in 1983, and Il Borgo did not open until March 2007 with fourteen rooms. Every other part of the operation — cellars, museum, Balsameria, restaurants — predates the beds. The hotel is the last thing built, and it is small against a property of some three thousand hectares.
The estate’s own numbers disagree with each other The 2016 sustainability report gives the property as 2,830 hectares in one passage and 3,100 in another, and its vineyard as 959 hectares in the figures but “more than 1,000 hectares” in the chairmen’s letter. A 2010 release reports “850 hectares under vine” at Montalcino; a December 2025 interview gives 2,900 hectares in all. The register prints each figure with its source rather than averaging them.
The castle’s age is disputed by the company that owns it The 2016 sustainability report dates the castle’s main construction to the ninth to thirteenth centuries and its first official reference to 1318. The estate’s hospitality page calls it “the fourteenth-century Castle of Poggio alle Mura, now known as Castello Banfi”. Both are the owner’s claims, three centuries apart, and both are published.
The star is in the castle, and so is the traffic La Sala dei Grappoli holds one Michelin star — captioned “One Michelin star 2025” on the estate’s page, and described in December 2025 as a sixth consecutive year. The same castle holds the Bottle and Glass Museum and the Balsameria. The estate reported more than 60,000 wine tourists a year in 2010 and “around 40,000 visitors” a year in 2025.
Fourteen keys sit inside a winery that receives tens of thousands of visitors a year, a museum, a tasting hall and tour groups; the hotel shares its courtyards with the business. There is no town at the gate and the nearest is Montalcino. A guest who wants a hotel that is only a hotel, or privacy at the centre of a working estate, will not find either here.
Signature rooms and dates
Competitive landscape
Sources
What the entry rests on, read 13 October 2026. Each reference records the facts it supports, so a disputed line can be traced to the account it came from.