A few minutes down the coast from Poggio ai Santi, at the southern edge of the Bolgheri appellation, something quietly remarkable has taken shape. An abandoned rhyolite quarry — the old Cava di Cariola, worked until the 1980s and then left to silence — has been reborn as a cellar.
Where machines once cut stone, wine now rests in the cool, constant hush of the rock. Above the quarry, Tenuta Meraviglia sits on a wooded plateau some 150 metres above the Tyrrhenian Sea, with the islands of the Tuscan Archipelago drawn along the horizon. It is a place of rare light and rare soil: roughly thirty hectares of certified-organic vines, planted above all to Cabernet Franc on volc
anic ground rich in rhyolite. The winemaking is as restrained as the setting. Grapes are picked early to hold their freshness, handled gently, and aged in large, untoasted oak rather than the small barrels typical of the coast. The result looks less to classic, sun-soaked Bolgheri than to the cooler, mineral reds of northern Italy and the Loire — precise, bright and unmistakably of this place.
Their flagship, the organic Cabernet Franc ‘Maestro di Cava’, has quickly become one of the most talked-about wines of the new Bolgheri. We love Tenuta Meraviglia because it shares our way of seeing things: organic farming, respect for the land, and beauty without noise. It is one of the producers we are proudest to pour at our table — and, for guests who like to wander, an easy and lovely detour along the coast during a stay with us. Ask us at reception to arrange a tasting, or simply look for the bottle on your next evening at Poggio.