Terrabianca www.terrabianca.com

In Roberto and Maja Guldender's hands, Terrabianca has become one of the world's best loved Tuscan wineries, reaping countless praise and awards both for sheer quality and striking designer packaging.

The estate's soil composition is calcareous (hence its "white" appearance), with strata of chalk, sand and clay from the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras: ideal for top-quality grape growing. The vineyards are surrounded by olive groves and woodland, and lie at altitudes between 250 and 500 meters above sea level, with ideal exposures (south and southeast). The range is diverse and stunningly good, providing singular consistency from vintage to vintage. In fact, success has been such that the original Terrabianca vineyard hardly sufficed to meet demand; thus, a decade after the Guldeners moved to Tuscany, they acquired a second property, "Il Tesoro".

This consists of 262 acres in the mineral-rich Maremma, now increasingly fashionable in the wine world. Where Terrabianca is in the central area of Tuscany (province of Siena), Il Tesoro is 43 miles away in the southwest, close to the sea and the holiday resort of Massa Marittima. Beside growing superb Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes (which are immediately transported "home" to Terrabianca to be vinified), the Maremma estate comprises 4,000 olive trees, many of which are 300-400 years old, yielding unbelievable extra virgin olive oil.