Castello di Bossi wedding

Castello di Bossi sits in the comune of Castelnuovo Berardenga, on the road that leaves the old Chiantigiana to climb towards Brolio, between evergreen woods and long rows of vines.

People have farmed here for a very long time. Inscriptions in the wall of the rectory of San Marcellino date a Roman settlement to the first or second century, and the Berardenghi were here by the ninth, already taking part of their rents in wine. The name is said to come from the boxwood chests in which the Roman legions carried their pay.

Bossi stood on the frontier when Siena and Florence were at war. The palace went up at the end of the fourteenth century or the start of the fifteenth, under the Placidi of Siena, and passed in time to the Piccolomini.

Today it belongs to the Bacci family, who brought the estate back from the long decline that followed the end of sharecropping. Castello di Bossi Chianti Classico comes from these vineyards, and the castle is the family’s home for the rest of the year, closed to the public.

The castle gives a wedding its outdoor spaces for the day, two halls for the weather, and a cellar that is still making wine.

The walled courtyard where the grapes were first pressed, with the cellar embracing it on two sides. The entrance gate frames the sunset over the Chianti, and we would hold the ceremony here for that reason alone.

A terrace over the vineyards wrapping two sides of the castle, its walls dressed in Virginia creeper that runs from green in spring to fiery red in autumn. This is where we prefer the aperitivo.

A square courtyard reached through barrel arches, with arched windows and old stone all round and jasmine on the walls in spring. Dinner belongs here.

Two halls inside the castle. The Sala del Gallo Nero has brick arches, an old terracotta floor and a great fireplace, and seats 60 guests; the African Room, the family’s hunting room, seats 80. Together they are the wet-weather plan.

On the ground floor, rooms of great barrels and old bottles where part of the estate’s wine is still made, with a wine bar inside. It is the first place we take guests on the day they arrive.

A panoramic court that takes a marquee when a wedding needs one.

A Castello di Bossi wedding starts from €200,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €300,000 all-in for 60 to 120 guests.

Three nights in all three farmhouses, with the castle’s event spaces for the wedding day, are just under €49,000 with VAT included.

It covers the 19 apartments, sleeping 63, and the courtyards, the Lemon Garden, the halls and the cellar for the wedding itself.

The farmhouses together with the castle for three nights, the family’s private wing included, are just over €112,000 with VAT included. The wing holds two suites and five double bedrooms, a large dining room with the old kitchen, a study and a first-floor salon.

The family opens it only as an exception, and only on this formula.

Catering, flowers, music, lighting, a marquee if the list needs one, and the dinners on the evenings either side. Those are most of the budget, and we cost them before a date is held.

Castello di Bossi sleeps 63 across 19 apartments in three restored farmhouses, each with its own pool. Every bedroom is en-suite, and every apartment has a kitchen, a wood fireplace, air conditioning and Wi-Fi.

There are no televisions, by the family’s choice. The estate covers 700 hectares of woods and vineyards, and the apartments are furnished in the rustic Tuscan way, in cotton fabrics the colours of the earth outside.

Eight apartments in a farmhouse and a former barn, 400 metres further up the hill from the castle, sleeping 26. The pool sits on the lawn beside it, looking down over the castle and its vines.

A stone farmhouse in a small valley among vineyards, olive groves and woods, divided into six apartments sleeping 25. There is a wood-burning oven, and the pool sits in the shade of old trees.

Five apartments in a farmhouse in the hamlet of Bossi itself, each with its own entrance, sleeping 12, with a pool in the garden.

Two suites and five double bedrooms inside the castle, available on the whole-property formula and nowhere else. We put the couple and their families here when the budget allows.

The castle is at Bossi in Chianti, in the comune of Castelnuovo Berardenga and the province of Siena. Siena is 26 minutes, Gaiole in Chianti 18, and the Castello di Brolio 21.

Florence Peretola is the nearest airport, an hour and 30 minutes by road. Pisa is two hours and 21, Bologna two hours and 17, and Perugia an hour and 39. Rome Fiumicino is three hours and 12.

Florence is the airport, and Siena is the base.

Florence city centre is an hour and 18. Siena station is 23 minutes, which makes Siena the natural base for any guests beyond the 63 who sleep on the estate.

The castle is a home and the farmhouses are apartments, and both facts shape the weekend.

Eighty is the number for the rain.

The African Room seats 80 and the Sala del Gallo Nero 60, and together they are the wet-weather plan for up to 80, but a longer list wants cover outdoors. For that, we hold a marquee on the panoramic tennis court from the day the date is booked, so a June storm changes nothing about the evening.

Two in the morning is the comune’s hour.

Music runs until two, set by the comune of Castelnuovo Berardenga. The SIAE licence is filed alongside, usually by the musicians, and we make sure it is.

Apartments, not rooms.

Nineteen apartments with kitchens and fireplaces suit families travelling together better than any hotel corridor. We plan breakfasts, a welcome hamper and a car or shuttle between the three farmhouses, because Casa Tolomei, Bossi di Sopra and Bellavista each sit in a different corner of the estate.

The wine is the welcome.

The Bacci family’s own Chianti Classico can be poured at dinner. We always open the weekend with a tasting in the cellar, and the estate’s bottles make the obvious favour for guests to take home.

Magic Day plans weddings at Castello di Bossi from the first conversation to the final farewell. The estate provides the farmhouses for three nights and the castle’s courtyards, gardens and halls for the day, or the whole castle on the larger formula. Everything else falls to the planner: the caterer appointed and briefed, the flowers, the lighting for the Corte del Torchio after dark, the marquee held on the tennis court for anything over 80, the civil ceremony arranged with the comune, the shuttles between three farmhouses, the welcome tasting in the cellar and the music held to two in the morning.

Each farmhouse has its own pool and its own character, and families are happiest placed together. We plan weddings here from 60 guests to well over a hundred. Tell us the dates you are considering and how many people are coming, and we will tell you which formula fits.