During the first 1100's Florence was totally surrounded by the estates of the main property owners of the time: the counts Alberti, the Cadolingi and the Guidi. The name of the location in which the estate of Colle Alberti is located suggests that it was a property of the Alberti, an antique family of longobardic origin which around the years 1000 owned a number of properties in the area of Prato. Around 1113, following the death of the count Ugo dei Cadolingi, Tancredi degli Alberti married his widow, hence becoming the owner of the large estates, castles and properties located between Florence and Fucecchio. Most probably Colle Alberti was among those.

The first written note mentioning podere Colle Alberti is a contractual clause dating 1292 for the concession of a piece of land as metayage, made by the owner named Puccio, a discendent of the Alberti. In the same document, in addition to the definition of the land (of approximately 6 hectars) there is also the concession to the metayer of the use of a building for housing.

Later, between 1567 and 1607, Colle Alberti becomes a farm belonging to the florentine family named Strozzi. A number of documents mention the Strozzi farm and reveal a very large property estate reaching up to the Arno river. These same documents reveal that the building named "Casanova" was already part of this extended property and has always preserved the same name: this is the building which currently houses the agriturismo of the Tenuta di Colle Alberti. The existence of the villa and the annexed buildings as well as their agricultural use -the barn and the cellar - is mentioned in a document dating 1607 and listing the inventory of the goods left by Piero di Pandolfo Strozzi at his death.

Later, until 1758, the ownership of the Tenuta di Colle Alberti passed through various families but there are no documents stating the various passages. From 1758 on, the large historic archive preserved in the farm provides detailed information. Of particular interest is the passage of ownership in 1803 to a spanish citizen of Cadice, named Don Giuseppe Perez Quintero, which manages the estate for sixteen years. During this period, Don Perez Quintero inserts his own coat-of-arms carved in stone in the west wing wall of the villa. The coat-of-arms is still there today. An estimate of the estates' value, dating 1818, includes the villa, the oil jars room, the barns, the private chapel, the dove-cot, the clock tower and the ten farms which are part of the estate, according to a configuration that is quite similar to the current one.

In 1819 Don Perez Quintero sells the property for health reasons and the estate becomes an asset of a company named "Giovanni Antonio Sappa & Co.", specialized in the trading of silk. When Giovanni Antonio Sappa, the main owner, dies, the company closes and Tenuta di Colle Alberti becomes a property of Antonia, one of the two daughters and wife of Leopoldo Valle. Since then and up to today, the property has never been sold any more and has been only trasmitted by inheritance from one generation to the other. The first photographic documentation of the estate dates 1883, as mentioned in that year's accounting documentation.

Since that time, Tenuta di Colle Alberti has always been a wine producing estate Click here to see the history of the estate through the photographs taken from 1883 to today.