Giuseppe Maria “Giugi” Sesti did not initially choose a career in wine. Instead, his Venetian upbringing inspired him to study music, art, and astronomy, the last of which became his profession. He met his future wife in North Wales while writing his first book on this topic, and in 1975 Giugi and Sarah moved their family to Tuscany, where they bought the abandoned ruins of the hamlet and castle of Argiano, slowly clearing the land and restoring the buildings to create the Sesti estate. His passion for wine grew along with his experience, and in 1991 he planted his own vineyards on the slopes around the castle. His four children helped pick and stomp grapes from the earliest age, and though they, too, pursued international studies in various fields, they always managed to come home for the harvest. In 1999 the couple’s only daughter, Elisa, joined the estate full time, and today she is an active partner in all aspects of the vineyard management and winemaking.

Giugi was determined to make entirely natural wines right from the start, taking a pioneering direction by applying his prodigious knowledge of the moon’s influence on living things to his vineyard management and winemaking. Today the family continues his philosophy, and Elisa’s primary concern is the materia prima, or raw material, that goes into the wine.