San Gimignano is the town of towers and of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, a white DOCG — not a Chianti. You see it from far off; it fills up close to. Parking is outside the walls; you walk in. At 9am Piazza della Cisterna is still a town. By 11.30 groups from the coach park occupy the main street as far as Porta San Giovanni.
Torre Grossa is the civic tower, the tallest, a Comune ticket, a view over the private towers that stay closed. The August queue, without a booking, eats half an hour. You go up early. The other towers are looked at: you do not go in.
Vernaccia is drunk in a cellar, just outside or a few minutes away, not at a stall in the square with a plastic glass. It is a hill white, with serious producers a kilometre from the walls. A 45-minute booking, three wines, and you have understood more than in a shop crawl. The concierge sets the time paired with the tower, not “afterwards, we’ll see”.
Gelato in the Cisterna is a ritual, not a brand. Choose the hour, not the photographed sign. A coffee, ten minutes sitting, then down towards the car before the square becomes a corridor.
How long. An hour and a half in the town plus the cellar is a full morning. A whole afternoon in San Gimignano in July is a queue. You go back to the villa for lunch, or down to a smaller cellar on the Chianti road if the house sits that way.
In winter the town changes: fewer lines, more wind on the tower, cellar hours to check. That is when San Gimignano becomes a village again. The concierge fits transfer and visits to those months as carefully as to August — only with more quiet.
