Two pushers per contrada roll an eighty-kilo barrel some eighteen hundred metres through Montepulciano, and the route climbs steadily to the Piazza Grande at the top. The physical demand is considerable and visible; teams train for months.
The contest revives a medieval horse race, replaced by barrels in 1974 in a town whose identity is Vino Nobile. A week of contrada dinners and a procession in fourteenth-century costume precedes it.
No attendance figure is published.
It is anchored to the last Sunday of August. Montepulciano is one of the more visited Tuscan hill towns and the lanes are narrow; the climb is lined several deep and the best viewing is from the upper sections, reached well before the start.
PlanningAnchored to the last Sunday of August; the course climbs, which is the entire point.