Montepulciano Geography, Climate & Nature

Montepulciano is built along the top of a narrow ridge, and that single fact determines the shape of the town, the difficulty of walking it and the quality of the views.

The site

The town sits at 605 metres — the highest of the five towns in this group — in a municipality of 165.33 km² with 13,984 residents. The ridge is narrow and long, so the town is linear: one main street climbing the spine from the lower gate to Piazza Grande at the summit, with short steep lanes dropping off both sides. There is no flat part.

Between two valleys

East of the ridge is the Valdichiana, broad and flat and agricultural, running toward Cortona and Lake Trasimeno. West is the hill country of the Val d'Orcia, with Pienza about twenty minutes away. Standing on the walls you can see both, which is unusual and is the reason Florence wanted this hill: a garrison here watches two valleys at once.

The appellation

The vineyards are on the slopes below the town, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano comes from them. It is worth being precise: this is a Sangiovese wine from this commune, not a wine made from the grape called Montepulciano, which is grown chiefly in Abruzzo.

The neighbours

Pienza is about twenty minutes west, Montalcino about an hour, and Siena a little over an hour north-west. Chiusi, to the south-east, has the nearest main-line station.

What it means for a visitor

This is the hardest walking of the five towns here, and that is not a small caveat. The town is a climb — from the gate to the square is a sustained ascent on stone — and there is no level alternative route. If someone in your party cannot manage a sustained hill, Pienza is the one to choose instead.

Montepulciano sits at 605 metres on an exposed ridge, and its climate interacts with its gradient in a way that matters more here than anywhere else in this group.

What each season does

• Winter is cold and notably windy — a narrow ridge between two valleys catches everything — with fog filling the Valdichiana to the east and the Val d'Orcia country to the west while the town sits above. Cold is actually the easiest weather in which to walk up the Corso.
• Spring is changeable, green on both sides, and the best balance of comfortable climbing and open cellars.
• Summer is hot and this is the real caution for this town. The main street is a continuous ascent with little shade, stone underfoot and stone either side holding the heat. A midday climb in August is genuinely unpleasant and occasionally dangerous for anyone unfit. Go up before 09:00 or after 18:00.
• Autumn is the best season overall: harvest on the slopes, clear air, warm days and cool nights, and the climb pleasant again.

The practical consequence

In July and August, reverse the normal plan. Walk the Corso and Piazza Grande early or late, and use the middle of the day for a cellar — several are cut into the rock under the palaces and are cool year-round — or a long lunch at the top. San Biagio, out in the open below the walls, is best in the late afternoon in any season, when the travertine turns gold.

Montepulciano's municipality covers 165.33 km² and spans two quite different kinds of country, because the town sits on a ridge between a broad plain and hill country.

What is here

• The Valdichiana, east, is a flat agricultural plain — historically a marsh, drained over centuries — and now intensive arable. Structurally simple, but the drainage canals that made it farmable are now its main linear habitat, carrying reed fringe, willow and the birds that go with water in a dry landscape.
• The vineyard and olive slopes immediately below the town produce Vino Nobile and occupy the best-exposed ground. As everywhere in Tuscany, the ecological value depends on whether the rows are grassed or kept bare.
• Oak and mixed woodland survives on the steeper western slopes and in the gullies, with holm oak, downy oak and hornbeam. These fragments are the habitat reservoir of the commune.
• The town itself is a long ridge of old masonry, and that is a real habitat: swifts, swallows, house martins and bats use the palace walls and roofs, and the ridge position means they are hunting over open air on both sides.
• Lake Trasimeno, well east beyond the Valdichiana, is the nearest major wetland and the obvious destination if birds rather than buildings are the point of the trip.

The honest framing

This is a farmed and long-settled landscape, and the interesting ecological question here is the contrast across the ridge: an intensively drained plain on one side and fragmented hill woodland on the other, with the town's own masonry doing the work of a cliff in between.

A ridge town between a plain and hill woodland: the wildlife divides the same way, and the best of it is visible from the walls.

From the walls

Standing on the edge of a 605-metre ridge with open air on both sides is an unusually good position. Common buzzard and kestrel work the slopes below and are often at eye level; swifts, swallows and house martins nest in the old masonry and hunt the air off the ridge all summer; bats emerge from the palace roofs at dusk. On autumn days raptors move along the ridge line on migration.

Mammals

Wild boar are abundant on the wooded western slopes, damage the vineyards and are hunted accordingly; they are the mammal most likely to be met on a track at dusk and are not dangerous if left alone, a sow with young excepted. Roe deer use the woodland, and red fox, badger, stone marten, crested porcupine and European hare work the margins between vineyard and wood.

On the plain

The Valdichiana's drainage canals are the productive feature in an otherwise simple arable landscape: grey heron, little egret and kingfisher use them, and marsh harrier hunts the reed fringe. Little owl is common on the farm buildings and easy to see at dusk.

In spring

Hoopoe, European bee-eater and golden oriole all arrive, and all three are heard long before they are seen. Nightingale sings from the scrub on the slopes in May.

Where to look

The town walls at dusk, for the swifts and bats and the raptors below — no walking required, which in Montepulciano is worth something. Otherwise the tracks on the western slopes early in the day, and San Biagio's open field at first light.