Lucolena Chestnut Festival

A half-century-long tradition

The Lucolena Chestnut Festival is one of the most deeply rooted autumn events in the Florentine Chianti. Established in the early 1970s and now having surpassed its fiftieth anniversary (celebrated in 2022), the event is organized by the Pro Loco Lucolena with the patronage of the Municipality of Greve in Chianti, in the heart of the province of Florence, Tuscany. For an entire weekend, the small hillside village of Lucolena comes to life, welcoming visitors from across the Chianti area.

The Lucolena chestnut, the absolute star

The true king of the festival is the Lucolena chestnut, a variety renowned throughout Tuscany for its quality and its sweet, creamy flavor. This autumn fruit has always been linked to the identity of the hilly territory around Greve in Chianti, where chestnut groves have for centuries represented a fundamental food and economic resource. During the festival, the chestnut is celebrated in all its forms: fragrant roasted chestnuts, castagnaccio (chestnut flour cake), marronacci, traditional desserts, and local peasant specialties.

What to find at the festival

The Chestnut Festival combines taste, conviviality, and popular traditions in a program that is repeated and renewed every year. Among the activities most loved by visitors:

• Food stalls with local products, Tuscan cuisine dishes, and chestnut-based specialties;
• Roasted chestnuts and mulled wine, the flavors that best define the Chianti autumn;
• Craft market and stalls featuring second-hand goods, hobbies, and local products;
• Traditional games such as sack races, tug-of-war, pasta-eating contests, and the pot-breaking game (pentolaccia);
• Live music and entertainment for all ages;
• Open-air painting for children and a photography contest;
• The awarding of the Giant Chestnut, a symbolic prize given to the largest chestnut harvested in the area.

The pyrotechnic chestnut

The most anticipated and evocative moment is the pyrotechnic chestnut (the "burst of the chestnut"), which closes the event on Sunday evening: a fireworks display that illuminates the Chianti mountains and bids farewell to visitors at the end of the festive weekend. It is the iconic image of the Lucolena Chestnut Festival, which over the years has become an unmissable appointment for local residents and tourists choosing Tuscany in autumn.

Lucolena and Chianti in autumn

Lucolena is a small hamlet in the Municipality of Greve in Chianti, nestled in the woods and chestnut groves of the hills that separate Chianti from the Valdarno. Visiting the festival is also an opportunity to discover an authentic and less touristy corner of the Florentine Chianti, far from the crowds, where the autumn season offers landscapes warm with color and the most genuine flavors of the Tuscan tradition.