The History

Presenting and describing Tenuta Le Velette is telling the story of a place where man has lived and left his mark for centuries, growing grapes and making wine.
The tales that can be told about the stages in the story of the estate can still be read in the places, objects, and structures that we can almost define as the settingof a history lasting 3000 years, in which wine has played a cultural, religious, diet, recreational and economic role.
The Tenuta Le Velette area was part of the region where the Etruscans developed their knowledge, their well-being and their skills, and with them, their ability to use the volcanic land to create deep cellars with temperatures that are perfect for the fermentation and storage of white wines.

This legacy was the only technique used up until 70 years ago, when it was progressively backed up by increasingly modern technologies in perfecting conditions that were already available 2500 years ago.
Many of the aging cellars thatare still being used on the estate today were originally built in those ancient times.

The area was neglected during the rule of the Romans, who defeated and drove out the Etruscans, but traces of this period remain in the paved streets, in walls built using Roman construction techniques, and in the cippi, the milestones found along the routes crossing through the area. It is assumed that an early structure, perhaps a watchtower, was built where the current villa is now located. In the Middle Ages and during the period that followed it, the estate became part of the possessions of noble families who, as was the custom then, lived in the towns or villages, from which they exerted control over their country properties, the basis of their well-being. Subsequent works can be dated to around the end of the 17th century, such as the converting of the main building into a country residence and the construction of the adjoining church, as documented in the Tiroli Land Registry map of 1766. It was in these years that the estate became the property of the Negroni counts, who in 1815 donated it to the Jesuitswhen a member of their family joined the order. The expansion of the building dates from this period, with the addition of the two side wings, and the construction of the outbuildings.
In the mid-19th century the Jesuits’ properties were expropriated and transferred to the city of Orvieto, and for a few decades the estate was owned by the city.

In 1877,Orvietodecided to sell Tenuta Le Velette by public auction, and it was purchased by the brothers Sante and Luigi Felici.
Thus, it is in that year that the story begins of an estate that in various forms has remained in the possession of the same family;first the Felici, then the Muzi and lastly the Bottai family.
The first works done on the estate were for the restoration and transformation of the villa into an elegant summer residence, along with the designing and building of the garden. Luigi Felici commissioned the painter Mariano Piervittori from the Marche to decorate some of the rooms in the villa and part of the chapel with frescoes, which he painted in the period from 1880 to 1883.
In the following years, two generations succeeded one another that suffered the great impact of tragic events that prevented them from devoting much energy to the development of the estate during the first half of the 20th century. New energies arose again when Marcello Bottai, a Florentine agronomist, entered the family andset off the agricultural and wine-growing revolution of Tenuta Le Velette.
In the 1950s the simple rows of grapevines began to be replaced by vineyards, the land tenant system of farming was abandoned, and a unitary structure was organized that was more suitable for planning and carrying out important investments. In those years,the Tenuta actively participated in the founding of the 1958 Consortium, the forerunner of the present-day consortium.

In 1967, modern cellars were built that made it possible to transform the production of the new vineyards into wines that began to be bottled and shipped to increasingly distant markets.
The achievements of Tenuta Le Velette over the last fifty years can be summed up in its commitment to be a living testimony and a journey of discovery that will allow you toperceive and understand how these centuries of history can enrich the heritage of sensations, emotions and curiosity for that which a place, its wines and its other products can offer.