Castello di Gabbiano wedding

Gabbiano is a wine castle at Mercatale in Val di Pesa, in the Chianti Classico hills south of Florence.

The building is medieval with a tower and a courtyard, and the estate around it makes Chianti Classico. There is a terrace with a view over the vineyards, a garden, a pool with a pergola, a consecrated chapel inside the walls, and an enoteca selling the wine. Ten rooms and suites sit in the castle itself and four apartments a hundred metres down the drive.

The restaurant on the estate, Il Cavaliere, is separate from the castle and does not cater events there.

The hire takes the whole property, and at fifty guests the spaces work as one.

The castle’s own enclosed courtyard, set up for the wedding as part of the wedding-day fee.

The outdoor room with the view across the vineyards, which is where the aperitivo happens.

A consecrated chapel inside the walls, used for symbolic ceremonies.

The garden space below the castle, included in the hire, with a €1,000 fee if guests who are not staying need access to it.

A Castello di Gabbiano wedding starts from €100,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €150,000 all-in for 30 to 50 guests.

Six thousand euros a night, VAT included, covering the ten rooms and suites, the four apartments, the terrace, the garden, the pool and pergola, the chapel, the parking and a Tuscan buffet breakfast served between eight and ten.

Two nights is the minimum midweek and three across any weekend, so the floor is €12,000 or €18,000 before the wedding day is counted.

A further €5,000, covering the set-up of the garden, the pool and the castle courtyard, the extra staff and the extra cleaning.

Brought in. The estate has a caterer it works with and will welcome one of ours after an inspection, and the caterer’s use of the castle kitchen is €700.

Il Cavaliere, the estate’s restaurant, will not serve the wedding at the castle but can take a welcome dinner or extra meals for the guests, on fixed menus for a group.

Extra beds are €60 a night, including a third adult on a suite’s sofa bed. Opening the pool area to guests who are not staying is €1,000. The city tax is €2 a head a night.

Every venue has rules about wine. Gabbiano’s are the most particular in our Tuscan portfolio, and we set them out at the very start.

The wine served at the wedding has to be the castle’s own label. The estate also does not permit clients to bring their own alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages of any kind, and there is no corkage arrangement to pay instead.

Taken literally, that covers the champagne for the toast, a family’s own wine, a particular spirit for the bar and even the soft drinks. It is a working wine estate and pouring its own bottles is part of the hire.

For most couples this is genuinely fine.

Gabbiano makes good Chianti Classico, it is the wine that belongs on these tables, and nobody notices what was not served. For a couple who had planned a specific champagne or a cellar of their own, we build the toast and the bar around the castle’s cellar instead. We always raise it in the first week rather than the sixth month.

A second thing to know about hiring a working estate: the enoteca is open to the public from ten in the morning until seven in the evening.

So on the wedding day itself there are visitors on the property buying wine, until an hour or so before the aperitivo. The hire covers the castle, the gardens and the rooms rather than the commercial side of the business.

In practice the shop sits away from the courtyard and the terrace, and a wedding of fifty guests getting ready in the morning will barely notice. For a couple who want the estate wholly private from breakfast onwards, we take the shop’s hours up with the estate and write the arrangement into the contract before signature.

Forty people with extra beds in use, or 31 without them.

Ten rooms and suites are in the castle itself and four apartments stand a hundred metres away down the drive. The rooms are quoted on double occupancy and the apartments on triple or quadruple, so the real figure depends on who is sharing with whom; extra beds are €60 a night each.

Forty beds against a fifty-guest ceiling is one of the closest fits in Tuscany, and it means almost the whole wedding wakes up on the estate. The ten guests who do not are a short drive away in Mercatale or Greve rather than an hour down a hill road.

The castle is on the Via di Gabbiano at Mercatale in Val di Pesa, in the comune of San Casciano, in the province of Florence.

Florence city centre is 39 minutes and the airport 45.

Florence Peretola is 45 minutes by road. Bologna is an hour and 32 and Pisa an hour and 35, and both take more long-haul flights than Florence does.

Siena is an hour and six and Rome Fiumicino three hours and 49.

Forty minutes from Florence for a real Chianti Classico castle is a good position, and for a wedding of fifty it means the guests who are not sleeping on site can stay in the city rather than hunting for farmhouse rooms.

A fifty-guest ceiling, a flat nightly rate, and a wine rule with no exceptions.

The castle’s own label is the only wine.

The castle’s own label is the only wine, and no outside drink is permitted at all. We go through the champagne, the spirits and any family bottles before the site visit, so the bar is planned around the castle’s cellar from the start.

The three weekend nights are bought whether or not they are filled.

The weekend minimum is three nights at €6,000 each, so the stay is bought whether or not it is filled. We build a welcome dinner at the estate’s restaurant and a farewell lunch into it rather than paying for an empty Sunday.

The wedding-day fee is part of the hire.

The €5,000 is not optional and it is not catering: it is the set-up, the staff and the cleaning. Quoted alongside €6,000 a night it adds nearly a third to the venue line and it belongs in the first budget rather than the third.

The wine shop is open on your wedding day.

The wine shop trades until seven on the wedding day, away from the courtyard and the terrace. We agree its hours with the estate before signature and plan the morning around them, so nothing about the day comes as a surprise.

Magic Day plans weddings at Castello di Gabbiano from the first conversation to the final farewell. That means the nightly rate and the wedding-day fee priced as one venue line, the drinks rule explained before anyone commits, a caterer appointed and inspected with the €700 kitchen fee counted, the enoteca’s closing time confirmed in writing, the three weekend nights filled with a welcome dinner and a farewell lunch, the extra beds and the apartment occupancy settled in the rooming list, the civil ceremony arranged at San Casciano with the symbolic one at the castle, and the finishing hour agreed before signature.

We have worked Tuscany for years. Tell us the dates you are considering and how many people are coming, and we will tell you what the nights come to.