Meet the Butteri of Alberese

Last updated: September 25, 2026

In the Maremma, the word for cowboy is buttero (plural butteri). These are the region’s mounted cattle herders, who work herds that live out on open pasture all year. Much of what is sold to visitors under that name today is a performance. At the Tenuta di Alberese, it is a job.

The estate is blunt about the difference. “I butteri da noi non sono una rievocazione storica o folkloristica,” Marco Locatelli of Ente Terre Regionali Toscane told the regional news site intoscana in 2020. “Sono operai agricoli che hanno competenze specifiche.” Our butteri are not a historical or folkloric re-enactment. They are farm workers with specific skills.

That is the key to understanding them. A buttero at Alberese is on the regional payroll. His work is the herd itself: moving cattle, separating and checking the calves, and, in season, branding. The horse and the saddle are tools. They are not a costume.

The men in the saddle

In the same 2020 report, intoscana introduced two of them. The massaro, or head herdsman, Alessandro, had 41 years on the job. “Solo la passione per questo lavoro con gli animali ti porta avanti e ti ripaga di tutto,” he said: only passion for this work with the animals keeps you going, and it repays you for everything. Stefano Pavin, who as a boy came to Alberese to watch the butteri and dreamed of becoming one, put it more simply. “Il nostro è uno stile di vita”: ours is a way of life. You spend the whole morning on horseback, he said, and sometimes the afternoon too.

The numbers show how thin this line has become. In May 2026, Maremma News reported on a visit to the estate by a regional delegation. It counted four butteri on the staff. The estate had 11 workers in total, down from 15 in 2021.

The year’s big moment

The most important day in the herd’s year is the spocciatura, the weaning. The butteri separate the calves from their mothers. The head buttero then weighs and checks the young animals and decides which will be kept for breeding. intoscana has called it the most important moment of the year on the farm. In 2022 the Region’s vice president came to watch.

Branding, the merca, has also been part of this work. A photograph in the Gori photo archive is captioned “Alberese, località Spergolaia, merca del bestiame.” A travel blogger who rode out with the butteri describes work that can include branding young cattle and moving the herd. We found no source for a public branding festival at Alberese, though. The well-known Festa della Merca takes place at Tarquinia, in Lazio.

What the English-language story gets wrong

Many English-language articles about the butteri tell the same tale: the cowboys of the Maremma beat Buffalo Bill. It is a great story. It is not about these men.

On 8 March 1890, at Prati di Castello in Rome, Buffalo Bill challenged local butteri to saddle and ride untamed horses from his Wild West Show. The men who met the challenge came from the Agro Pontino, the reclaimed plain south-east of Rome, in Lazio. They were led by Augusto Imperiali, known as “Augustarello,” from Cisterna di Latina. The main narrative source is a single newspaper report, in Il Messaggero of 10 March 1890. It describes Imperiali’s “stupenda galoppata” around the field, reins in one hand and his hat waving in the other.

English Wikipedia even reverses the roles and says the butteri challenged Buffalo Bill. The Italian sources say he challenged them. Cisterna takes the story seriously. In 2004, the comedian Giorgio Panariello credited Tuscan Maremma butteri on RAI Uno. Cisterna’s mayor threatened legal action, and Panariello retracted within a week.

None of this diminishes Alberese. The word “Maremma” covers the Lazio coast too, and butteri worked on both sides of the border. The Tuscan story is simply a different one: not a famous afternoon in 1890, but a job that is still done every morning.

The Products

Maremmana beef. The estate’s best-known product is the meat of its Maremmana cattle, a breed that the farming site AgricolturaBio describes as having “una storia ultra millenaria,” a history of more than a thousand years. The animals live semi-wild on open pasture. Figures vary by year and source. Reports in 2020 gave more than 400 head. The May 2026 count listed 190 breeding cows, 20 heifers, 9 bulls, 130 calves born that year, and 60 yearlings. The estate runs a short supply chain for its beef, from pasture to sale.

Maremmano horses. The butteri ride the Maremma’s own horse breed, which the estate also breeds. In 2026, Maremma News counted about 50 horses: breeding mares, the butteri’s working horses, stallions, and young horses being broken in.

The rest of the farm. The Tenuta is large, although the sources disagree on how large. 2020 reports gave 4,200 hectares of pine forest, woodland, pasture, farmland, and olive groves. The May 2026 report gave about 3,500 hectares, of which 680 are cultivated and 800 grazed, though the same article also cites 3,900. Alongside the beef, it makes its own bread, the pane di Alberese, and wines sold as Barbicato, Morellino di Scansano, and Banditella. Its olive oil comes only from organic olives. The estate also houses the Banca Regionale del Germoplasma, Tuscany’s regional seed bank, which keeps genetic material of native plants in cold storage. The May 2026 report calls the Tenuta one of the largest organic farms in Europe.

Eating the butteri’s way

The dish most tied to these men is acquacotta, literally “cooked water.” The Grosseto news site Il Giunco calls it “the typical lunch of the butteri,” eaten in the fields with the herd. It is onion, tomato, celery, and wild herbs poured over stale bread, with eggs or ricotta added when there were any. Order it anywhere in the Maremma. Then order the beef.

Visiting the Butteri of Alberese

The Tenuta offers “escursioni di lavoro con i butteri,” working excursions with the butteri. This is not a trail ride with a guide. A travel blogger who took part describes an early-morning outing of about five hours, back in time for lunch. Riders must be competent and are expected to help with the work. The blogger also says it is not suitable for children.

Contact the estate directly to book and to ask about prices, dates, and riding requirements. The Tenuta is at Località Spergolaia, Strada del Mare 25, 58100 Alberese (tel. 0564 407180). Its tourism site is alberese.com, and Ente Terre Regionali Toscane has an official page for the estate. The estate also offers farm stays and educational visits about its cattle and seed bank. In September 2026 the Strada del Mare bridge over the Perazzeta canal, on the road to Marina di Alberese, closed for safety; check current road access when you book (Il Giunco).

If you do not ride

You can still see butteri without getting on a horse. In Grosseto, mounted butteri join the procession for the feast of San Lorenzo on 9 August. Near Istia d’Ombrone, the private Tenuta di Poggio Cavallo stages a butteri show. Be clear about what you are watching there: it is a commercial performance, which is fine, but it is not the working herd.

Getting there

You will need a car. Alberese is a small village south-east of Grosseto, on the edge of the park. Alberese railway station has had no regional passenger service since 2010. Combine the visit with a walk in the Parco Regionale della Maremma, whose visitor center is in the village. Check the park’s seasonal rules before you go, because many trails are guided-only in summer.

Information is provided in good faith and may change. Always confirm opening hours, prices, and event dates with the official source before you travel.