story
It all started with a Christmas visit
The most beautiful stories are love stories. In this case, it is the love at first sight of a Swiss couple, Bruno and Brigitte Widmer, for the “Brancaia”-hill, which began during a Christmas visit in 1980 to a friend in Tuscany. “From our friend Ruedi Bettschart’s house, we could see this beautiful piece of land,” Bruno recalls.The entire area was covered in morning mist, but Brancaia shone in the sun. A magical sight!“
In 1981, Bruno and Brigitte purchased the Brancaia hill in Castellina in Chianti – a house in need of renovation and 20 hectares of land, far from being a fully established winery. With love and entrepreneurial spirit, they transformed the estate step by step. Because Bruno loved wine to share moments with friends and family, the dream of cultivating the four hectares of vineyards soon took shape. In the same year, they harvested their first grapes.
Brancaia becomes a brand
From the very beginning, Bruno wanted to produce wine according to his philosophy of the highest quality, combining Swiss precision with Italian style. Thanks to this approach, the first major recognition came already in 1986: victory in a blind tasting of the 1983 Chianti Classico, organized by the renowned magazine VINUM.
In 1988, Brancaia produced IL BLU for the first time, whose composition does not comply with the Chianti Classico regulations. The fact that IL BLU could therefore only be classified as a Table Wine did not deter Bruno and Brigitte Widmer: Bruno was firmly convinced of the quality of his wine and knew that ultimately what matters is the taste – not the classification. With this determination, Brancaia became one of the “Historical Supertuscans” in the following years, admired by wine lovers worldwide for their complexity and elegance.
Brancaia becomes an icon
Precisely for this first bottle of IL BLU in 1988, Bruno – who ran an advertising agency in Zurich – developed the iconic Brancaia logo together with his designer: the letters of the word “Brancaia” and the four digits of the vintage were arranged into that distinctive square, which still can be found on every bottle of the estate today.
In 1989, the Widmers purchased another completely ruined property in Radda in Chianti. There, they decided to build their own winery – the foundation for Brancaia’s further growth.
Their daughter Barbara, architecture student at that time, participated in 1993 in her first harvest at Brancaia. “That’s when the spark happened,” she says. Her love for nature and fascination with the harvest led her to leave her studies and, in 1995, enroll at the University of Applied Sciences in Wädenswil to study oenology. An internship at Domaine des Balisiers in the Canton of Geneva – at the time Switzerland’s largest organic wine producer – had a lasting influence on her approach, which Brancaia continues to follow today.
In 1998, Bruno and Brigitte Widmer acquired 82 hectares of land in the Maremma facing the sea. Subsequently, Barbara dedicated her diploma thesis to the “Brancaia in Maremma” project. Here too, the Widmers rebuilt everything from scratch – in accordance with the principles of sustainability and organic farming, which still shape Brancaia’s philosophy and production today.
In 2014, Brancaia made an important investment and acquired a logistics center between Siena and Florence. This allowed the offering for visitors in Radda to be significantly expanded – with a modern tasting room and a varied visits’ offering in Chianti.
Brancaia’s offerings expanded in 2019 with the opening of Osteria Brancaia at the Radda winery and in 2025 with the gastronomic wine bar Bar Brancaia in Castellina in Chianti. More coming!