Fattoria di Busona

We are in the land that smells of Chianti, the beautiful Tuscany, at the southern limit of the municipality of Castellina, at the border between Siena and Florence, on the stretch that rises from the fortified village of Monteriggioni to Lornano and then continues towards Topina and Quercegrossa.
 

From battleground to agricultural settlement

A zone of battles between the Sienese and Florentines, and then between the French and imperial forces, until 1559 and the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, as evidenced by some findings of watchtowers.

It then becomes a agricultural settlement by the end of the 1500s, in the property of the Convent of Santa Margherita in Castelvecchio di Siena, with the first farms established (some olive trees set in stone lunette may date back to that period), and subsequently of the Piccolomini family of Siena.

The property was then purchased in 1706 by Francesca Malavolti, who brought it as a dowry to her marriage with Girolamo di Celso Domenico Bargagli. Since then, the property of Busona has remained continuously with the Bargagli family and its heirs.
 

Not just oil: 160 hectares of quality

The company currently covers a surface area of about 160 hectares, of which approximately 138 are in hilly areas and 22 in flat land, mainly in the municipality of Castellina in Chianti, and in the municipality of Monteriggioni. The company produces grapes for Chianti Classico, Tuscan IGP EVO Oil, cereals, legumes, and oilseeds, in rotation.
 

Since 2019, we have started recovering the olive groves

Currently, the company owns two olive groves in the municipality of Castellina in Chianti. The olive groves were practically abandoned when they were taken over in 2019, starting their reform in 2020 to gradually lead them to a polyconic vase cultivation, and then continuing with thickening.

In 2020, the recovery of the oldest olive groves was also started, for which there is an idea to develop a dedicated ‘cru’ project, and finally a major expansion project for production on the company lands most suited to olive cultivation, which were devastated by the terrible frost of 1956.
 

Fattoria di Busona: sustainability and technology in the field

At the same time, expanding the precision agriculture project initiated in the vineyards in 2021, we have also started the use of environmental sensors and predictive analysis platforms in the olive groves to implement agronomic practices aimed at maximum environmental sustainability, from cover crops to in-field chipping of prunings, variable rate fertilization, to the use of zeolite, also for future certification.

Fattoria di Busona participates, in collaboration with the University of Siena - Santa Chiara Lab, in the AGRITECH project, to scientifically define the geographical origin of agri-food products and to define methods and tools to significantly improve the current resolution for ever greater precision of product origin.

The ultimate goal is to define and real tracking of the ‘microzones’ of origin for EVO oil which is now also distributed through our portal.