Precise Tale Poggio Alla Sala

We arrived at Precise Tale Poggio Alla Sala just as the April light was fading. I had planned to check-in, nip to the restaurant for some pasta and then slide into bed while the sun was still visible above the Val d’Orcia. But after a tricky flight involving a trickier baby, I was compelled to jog off the cabin air before eating. We parked up, and I quickly set off on a light run around the hotel’s vineyards, leaving my partner with our two small children entranced by the small fountain outside our ground-floor suite.

The area of Tuscany around Montepulciano is easy on the eye, its verdant landscape rolling between red hilltop towns, thin snaking roads and holm oak trees rising up against the fat blue skies of Italy in spring. This is Gladiator country, Chianti-ville. It takes quite the Tuscan villa to impress. But if you’ve time, and inclination, then I recommend making your way on foot to the far end of the vineyard— now owned, strangely enough, by Canadians — and looking back up at the hotel from a distance. It is not just a monument to Italian grandeur, it’s also one that allows children.

The hotel was formerly owned by the Bonci-Casuccini family. The main villa dates back to the tail end of the 19th century, though there are older buildings (a farmhouse) and much newer buildings (latte-coloured outhouses), which house the more family-friendly ground-floor suites — a good five-minute walk from the main building, out of sight and out of earshot. They're laid out with a focus on privacy, history and space: grand lawns boxed in by bay hedges, and inside, exposed chestnut beams, ornate wrought-iron railings, Silk Road decor and arched doors mirroring the lines of olive, bay and cypress trees outside. 

We came here at the start of the season, when the temperatures were in the low 20s. It was warm for Brits, less so for Italians, which meant the three pools — one for adults, one for kids and one for those who don’t mind sharing — were closed and some minor work was going on in the adjacent pool bar. No matter. The loungers were available and one could dip one’s toe into the adult pool, tucked away in a little windless corner below the main terrace, overlooking the vines that are positively filmic.

At this stage, it bears repeating that this is not a children's hotel. Aside from breakfast — a glamorous little buffet of burrata, eggs and American pancakes, popular with our children, who piled up their plates to stuff their faces on the shady terrace outside — we never saw or heard another child after 9am. Which is to say the place is set up to accommodate everyone, a meeting of church and state, with very little crossover. 

The spa, with its beautifully appointed Jacuzzi, sauna, steam rooms and classy bowls of pistachio nuts, is a case in point. For two hours each morning and two hours each afternoon, children are allowed in. Surely an industry first. The rest of the time it’s adult only. During my baby’s nap, I followed a private sauna with a glorious full-body massage, which pummelled the rest of the flight stress out of my poor, post-partum body, and promptly fell asleep on the treatment table. If you want to avoid children, you simply sidestep these times. It also helps that they don’t tend to like hot rooms.

The bedrooms vary among the three buildings. The most luxe suites and rooms sit within the neoclassical villa, with its vaulted ceilings, original frescoes in gentle tones, and proper four-poster beds. These are for grown-ups. The rooms above the dairy, with its brick vaults, have a gentler, modernist touch, which can feel a little at odds with the rest of the hotel, but they're undeniably good for families. Meanwhile, the outhouses sit on the ground floor away from the action, and have their own garden. This is where we slept.

My issue with taking children to hotels is more about one waking the other. Our two-room suite — slightly over-furnished, yet neutral and cosy, with excellent blackout curtains — was thankfully big enough to prevent that from happening.

Finding a luxury hotel that allows children has become both Herculean and chimeric. I get it — I used to be child-free, too. There are family hotels of course, all-inclusive spots with wipedown floors and children’s menus — and on the final day we stumbled across a well-hidden playroom, tucked into the back of the dairy, replete with tasteful toys, play kitchens and footballs. During high season, you can sometimes leave the kids here. Thing is, I’ve always preferred to give my kids a more rounded experience. Adult food in a child-size bowl. Family-tolerant rather than family-dominant. This is precisely that.

On paper, it shouldn’t work of course. And on the first night for dinner, we were sat next to a honeymooning couple, them with octopus and a bottle of Chianti classico, us with bowls of buttery pici and high chairs. But no one seemed to mind. We ate memorably: dainty Tuscan tomatoes with wild strawberries topped with a generous ball of burrata, and a perfectly rare steak dotted with seared beetroot were more than enough. There is no children’s menu, and dinner (deliberately perhaps) begins at 7.30pm, which makes it more suited to adults. On those occasions, you simply go out for dinner. Given Montepulciano is 10 minutes away, there are certainly worse places to have a slice of pizza and an evening drive.