EXHIBIT 10.10 Contract of Special Partnership or Joint Venture

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Exhibit 10.10

Contract of Special
Partnership or Joint Venture

        The company "Alberghiera Fiesolana S.p.A.", whose registered office is at 4, Via Doccia, Fiesole; income tax number 00546220484; VAT number 00546220484; (hereinafter referred to as "the Company"), in the person of its Managing Director Sig. Maurizio Saccani who was born in Parma on 20 May 1950, income tax number SCCMRZ50E20G337S, acting in accordance with the authority conferred on him by a special resolution of the Board of Directors dated 22 June 2002, and

        The farm "Capannelle S.r.l.", whose registered office is at Capannelle, Gaiole in Chianti (SI), in the person of its Sole Director Dr. Francesco Dellepiane who was born in Genoa on 2 July 1927, income tax number DLLFNC27L02D96R (hereinafter referred to as "the Partner"),

WHEREAS:

        The Company owns and manages the hotel "Villa San Michele" in Fiesole, which has over the years developed a particular type of international clientele that has a special love of Tuscany and its rural landscapes;

        and the Partner has the use of a building situated at Gaiole in Chianti (Siena), in the village of Capannelle, standing on and forming part of farmland there with a vineyard and sundry crops; and this building is rented to the Partner who uses it in connection with the said farmland, of which the Partner is the tenant;

        and the building, which is mostly given over to the production, storage (including for ageing purposes) and sale of the wine produced by the Partner, has in addition four bedrooms, a dining-room with kitchen attached—all these rooms being occasionally used for tastings to promote sales of the home-grown wine and sometimes to put up any particularly important clients—and a small swimming pool (the said bedrooms together with the dining-room and kitchen, and swimming pool, are hereinafter called collectively "the Premises");

        and when the Premises are not being used, as described above, for purposes connected with the sale of wine produced by the Partner, they are entirely unused even though they have a considerable impact on the Partner's overheads;

        and although the Partner wishes to be able to continue making use of the Premises on an occasional basis for the purposes for which they have been used up until now, the Partner is willing to grant the Company permission to use the said Premises, on the conditions set out in this contract, in order that it may earn a profit which will, all being well, cover its overheads;

        and the Company considers that it can use the Premises profitably, not only by reason of its experience as a hotelier, but also because it will be in a position to satisfy its clie