Villa Petriolo: “Artigiani Coraggiosi” returns to Cerreto Guidi—an event that highlights local producers, food culture, and a model of hospitality built on the relationship between business and community.
Some places choose the local landscape as a backdrop, while others decide to truly become part of it. Villa Petriolo belongs to the latter category.
Villa Petriolo is a 166-hectare organic farm located in Cerreto Guidi, in the heart of Medici Tuscany. The project revives the model of the ancient farmhouse villas, bringing together hospitality, agriculture, cuisine, and wellness. The estate’s produce directly supplies the restaurants led by Chef Stefano Pinciaroli, through a system that involves local producers and artisans and enhances the landscape and the community.
And it is precisely here that the second edition of “Artigiani Coraggiosi di Villa Petriolo” returns—an event created to showcase not only products and people, but above all a different way of understanding hospitality: as a system of relationships, shared responsibilities, and value returned to the community.
At the heart of the project lies a widespread and integrated agricultural model in which the estate’s own production—ancient grains, wine, olive oil, honey, vegetables, herbs, and meats—interacts with a network of small local businesses selected for their quality, identity, and ability to preserve knowledge often passed down through the generations.
This short supply chain not only meets culinary needs but also becomes part of a broader vision: to support local economies, keep artisanal skills alive, enhance the landscape, and create a travel experience that truly captures the essence of the place that hosts it.
It is precisely from this vision that the name “Artigiani Coraggiosi” was born.
“Coraggiosi” because choosing authentic products, working with the rhythms of the land, prioritizing quality, and supporting local producers often means moving in the opposite direction of standardization and speed. It means continuing to believe that behind every food item, object, or experience there must be recognizable people, stories, and places.
The day will kick off today at 5 p.m. with the roundtable discussion “Community and Territory: A Shared Responsibility,” dedicated to the relationship between agriculture, food culture, tourism, and sustainability.
Moderated by Daniele Nannetti, CEO of Villa Petriolo, the discussion will feature Cesare Cacciapuoti, editor-in-chief of Italy Segreta; Francesca Cavini of La Nazione; Dora Iannuzzi of Il Gusto di Repubblica; Alessandro Rossi, editor-in-chief of Forbes; Massimo Sironi, managing editor of Dove Viaggi – Corriere della Sera; and Nicky Swallow, contributor to Condé Nast Traveller and The Telegraph.
Different voices will come together to address a question that is increasingly central today: what responsibility does a hospitality business have toward the place where it operates?
Because talking about sustainable tourism now means going beyond the responsible use of resources. It also means questioning a hospitality business’s ability to generate positive impacts on the local area, create jobs, support local production, protect the landscape, and help keep a community’s cultural identity alive.
At the end of the meeting, the “Radici e Visione” award will be presented to Professor Roberta Garibaldi, an expert in food and wine tourism, destination research and development, and professor of Food and Wine Tourism Management at the University of Bergamo.
The award aims to recognize her contribution to the study and promotion of a new understanding of the role of food and wine in contemporary tourism, as well as the social and environmental impact of choices related to agriculture, hospitality, and food culture.
Starting at 6:30 p.m., the spotlight will shift directly to the producers.
In the villa’s gardens and grounds, visitors will have the opportunity to meet the organizations involved in the Villa Petriolo network: I Seminanti, La Dispensa Toscana, Ferri Leda Fiori e Piante, Bufalcioffi, Olmechi Cioccolateria Artigianale, the Consorzio della Cinta Senese DOP, and L’Apettina, along with the estate’s wine and olive oil producers.
Rounding out the experience are the works of sculptor Massimiliano Roncatti, which will remain on display in the gardens for a year, creating a dialogue between art, nature, and the landscape.
At 7:00 p.m., the Palio di Cerreto Guidi will bring one of the most recognizable elements of local memory and tradition to the event.
It is precisely this fusion of agriculture, craftsmanship, gastronomy, culture, and art that conveys the deepest meaning of the initiative.
Not merely a showcase of products, but an ecosystem.
A model in which visitors do not merely encounter a lodging facility, but come into contact with the human and productive system that surrounds it.
The day will conclude at the Osteria di Golpaja, the restaurant at Villa Petriolo led by Head Chef Stefano Pinciaroli, with a five-course menu built specifically around the products of the “Artigiani Coraggiosi.”
From pecorino cheese with honey and figs to panzanella made with ancient-grain bread, from pasta with smoked provola to honey-glazed capocollo stew, all the way to the almond and cocoa dessert, each dish will serve as a meeting point between ingredients, the local territory, and culinary interpretation.
Accompanying the meal will bethe estate’s wines.
Villa Petriolo, with its 166 hectares of organic farmland, thus ideally revives the model of the ancient Tuscan farm-villas, where agricultural production, social life, and the economy were all part of a single, integrated whole.
An ancient model that today, however, takes on a new meaning.
In an era when even travel risks becoming uniform and replicable, the challenge of hospitality increasingly lies in the ability to restore authenticity to places.
And perhaps this is precisely what true contemporary luxury is: knowing where our food comes from, knowing who produces it, and feeling that our presence in a region contributes, at least in part, to keeping it alive.
