Niall O’Toole didn’t just leave behind a slick legal career when he swapped Dubai for Tuscany in Italy – he left Cork. It’s where he’s originally from, but the Middle East became home in 1997. Not the obvious prelude to a vineyard in Montepulciano.
It was more like a great, unplanned escape for him and his wife Paari, who grew up in Dubai after her family moved there from India in 1993. Both corporate lawyers, the pair met at the same firm, with Paari later setting up her own practice.
They could hardly have imagined that a belated honeymoon in 2017 would spark a chain of events that would uproot their entire lives. After a nine-week sabbatical in Italy, when they got back to Dubai they couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something bigger waiting for them in the hills of Montepulciano.
For three years, the O’Tooles flitted back and forth between Italy and Dubai. They visited Italy multiple times a year, travelling in all seasons to understand what life would really be like – no postcard-perfect fantasies, but the real grind of rural life. And they visited more than 70 properties, flicking through hundreds more online.
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“We wanted to make wine. That was the main thing,” says Paari. “We wanted to be in a wine-producing region. And then, of course, you look at what kind of town you want to be in. Does it have that charm factor? Is it close to transport links? All of the practical stuff. If you’re going to produce wine, it will also be good to have an agritourism element, somewhere that you can rent out to tourists as well, because you get that footfall.
“Thinking like lawyers and thinking like business owners. We started in Chianti, but then figured out that we liked the town of Montepulciano a lot. It’s very picturesque, its people are lovely, and it’s got amazing wine and food.”
Having found the perfect property, they took the plunge, sold everything in Dubai, packed up their lives, their dogs, and, with a vague sense of how winemaking worked, moved to Tuscany. It was at the beginning of the pandemic, which meant navigating limited flights, airline negotiations, and endless paperwork just to get the dogs cleared to come with them.
But then they hit a roadblock. The vineyard they planned to buy was withdrawn from the market two days before they were due to travel. Having already committed to the move, they set about finding a rental property so they could restart their search.
By June, 2021, they were back on track.
They signed the papers to buy Poggio Golo, an old estate with a 16th-century villa in the hills between Valdichiana and Val d’Orcia, once owned by the Bishop of Siena. It was run down but full of potential – a six-hectare vineyard, with some of the vines 70 years old. Sitting at an elevation of 200-300 metres above sea level and arranged in a 360-degree circle around the estate, it’s perfect for growing grapes.
Where some saw decay, the O’Tooles saw opportunity.
“It wasn’t exactly in top shape when we found it,” says Niall. “The previous owner had stopped making wine in 2007 or 2008. He leased out the vineyard, rented the villa in summer. He was just getting by, patching things up rather than replacing them. The vineyard was about quantity, not quality.”
Forget the sunset strolls through the vines; winemaking, it turns out, is less romantic than it looks on Instagram. The couple’s first harvest, in 2021, was a trial by fire. They had to rely on neighbours for facilities to make the wine, and the learning curve was steep. This first vintage is particularly special, says Paari, as they made all the decisions themselves.
Running the vineyard, as the O’Tooles have discovered, is a daily challenge – managing harvest teams, figuring out yields, and understanding the land’s needs. They have hired an agronomist and an oenologist to help steer them through the more technical aspects, but it remains very much a hands-on, passion-driven job. There are also regulations around organic certification, soil compaction issues, and the endless battle with mildew. “Last year, we lost 85 per cent of our harvest to rain and heat,” says Niall.
Their annual output hovers at around 30,000 bottles a year, a combination of Rosso di Montepulciano DOC, Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG and an IGT Toscana red. Sangiovese is king in these parts – specifically the Prugnolo Gentile variety – and the O’Tooles are learning to treat it with the reverence it deserves. Their wine has already made it to local restaurants, and their next goal is to crack the export markets in Europe, North America and beyond. They even managed to get their first batch of bottles out to Mozambique as part of their slow-burn expansion beyond Italy.
And then there’s the villa, which they spent six months upgrading after their first season. A six-bedroom estate house with views across the Tuscan hills, it’s also a fully functioning agriturismo, where guests can rent the villa for a week and live their own Tuscan dream.
Despite the challenges, Paari and Niall have settled into the rhythm of Tuscan life. If there’s a meeting, it’s in person, and if it’s lunch, it’s a leisurely affair, unlike the frantic desk-side salad back in Dubai. “In Dubai, you eat on the go. Breakfast cereal at your desk, a quick salad for lunch, then something thrown together for dinner. Here? Lunch is two hours minimum, and you savour every bite,” says Paari.
They’ve also thrown themselves into learning the language, picking up Italian during the pandemic when there was little else to do.
The next big step? A new winery building, complete with state-of-the-art carbon dioxide capture technology that will make Tenuta Golo one of the first wineries in Europe to recycle carbon dioxide from fermentation. “Right now, it’s theoretical,” Niall says, with cautious optimism. “But we’re confident it will work.”
They are working with architects from Florence to realise their dream – a wooden A-frame winery with a glass gable end facing Montepulciano and the sunset. Wine tastings will be held there, and the ageing room will be just behind. There will be enough solar panels on the roof to supply all of their energy needs, except for four or five days a year when everything is running at full capacity.
So, was the move worth it?
“There’s no question in our minds that we did the right thing by having this life change,” says Paari. “That’s not to say that there haven’t been challenges, but our life is amplified in every way. Your joys and highs are higher, and the lows are lower, too. Our relationships with the community, and with each other, have deepened in ways we couldn’t have imagined in Dubai.”
As for advice, their answer is simple: “Do your research, get a good team, and figure out why you really want to make this change.”
It’s not for everyone, they admit, but for the O’Tooles, this chaotic vineyard-filled life in Tuscany is a far richer experience than their slick, corporate days in Dubai.
“We’re not going to get rich from wine,” says Niall, “but that’s not the point. We’re rich in other ways now. And that’s worth more.”
