After nearly twenty years at the helm of a small winery, Brunello expert Laura Gray here brings together a dazzling range of eclectic knowledge about both city and wine, with an analytic eye for detail and an irreverent attitude to life.

Is The Magpie’s Guide to Montalcino a guide-book? Is it a lexicon? A glossary? A wine compendium? It is all of these and more. The format is A-Z but the selection criteria are entirely personal. Expect everything from etymology to cultural observation, historical curiosity to contemporary quirk.

Laura’s ability to convey huge amounts of information with levity and wit underpins a deep understanding of the wine, the culture and the quotidian rewards of life in the extraordinary and singular city of Montalcino.

The book is a dip-in-and-out treasure trove of factlets, informative tidbits, and compelling rabbithole dives into one of the most magical wine-making towns in the world. It’s written with the authority of the two-decade CEO of a winery, the style of a literature graduate, and the humour of a Scot. My kind of wine reading.

Joe Fattorini • British wine expert, writer, radio and TV presenter [The Wine Show (ITV), Drinking with Joe and Maya (Pluto TV)]


Just try to dip into this exquisite book. I challenge you to put it back down without arriving somewhere late in the alphabet or online searching for flight times to Tuscany. Like popping over to a great friend for coffee and then rolling home, feeling extremely fine after martinis somewhere around 19:00, the tone is so engaging, you get filled in on EVERYTHING! All the essentials are here, but the extras are what make this book shine – effortless and smart without being smug, laugh-out-loud funny in parts (when have you ever done that reading a dictionary??!). I didn’t know guide books could be like this!

Emily O’Hare • Decanter Tuscan Wine Specialist

Born and raised in Scotland, Laura Gray studied English Literature at Somerville College, University of Oxford. The day after her last exam, she had her wisdom teeth removed, sold her belongings and moved to Italy. Her intention was to conclude the previous year’s summer romance before returning to real life. Instead, she married him and they now have three children. She has lived there ever since.
She had the good fortune to find herself in Montalcino, a beautiful hilltop town in the heart of Tuscany, where the prestigious wine Brunello di Montalcino DOCG is produced. The leap from books into wine was inevitable. Laura qualified as a sommelier in 2004, and was the CEO and manager of a small winery for twenty years. Since 2022, she has worked freelance as a winery whisperer as well as running bespoke art history tours.



Gabriele Gorelli MW is one of Italy’s most esteemed wine experts. Born (1984) and raised in Montalcino, Tuscany, he became the first Italian Master of Wine in February 2021.