My husband & I are returning to Italy the first week of May. I yearned to return to Locanda dell Amorosa and am disappointed to find they are already booked. Moving on, I perused this forum for alternatives with a similar feel for lodging. I've come up with these wonderful sounding places:
La Saracina
Relais Vignale
Relais Palazzo del Capitano
Villa Vignamaggio
What are the pros and cons with regard to location, parking, ambience, rooms, etc.?

I greatly appreciate your help...
Lisa

We stayed at Palazzo del Capitano this past Sept and would highly recommend this hotel to anyone wishing for a beautiful room and lovely gardens. The hotel also has a lovely restaurant located in their "back yard" which was excellent.
We have not stayed at any of the others on your list but would recommend Palazzo del Capitano without hesitation. Their rooms are even nicer than the website.

We stayed at La Saracina and loved it. Do a search on it and you should find my post entitled something like "For those who can't get enough of Italy...." in which I rave on about it. It's a bit out in the country but in the middle of several of the wonderful little Tuscan villages so you can day trip from it easily. We checked out Locanda Amorosa while we were there and decided that we were glad we'd chosen La Saracina. Only downside is that they have no restaurant so you need to drive for dinner and find your way back in the dark.

Is your "Relais Vignale" Relais Fattoria Vignale in Radda in Chianti? If so, then we recently stayed in both it and La Saracina. Both were excellent, although La Saracina wins for romance and remoteness. It has only six guest rooms on a large property. Rooms are spacious, with a country-inn feeling. Note what Julie said about having to drive to dinner-- I would definitely want a car if I were staying here.

Relais Fattoria Vignale is also lovely, but it's a little bigger, and it is in town (which could be good or bad depending on the relative value of walking to restaurants v. getting away from it all!). We were in the annex, which is across the road from the main building, although that didn't pose any problems, and it was still blissfully quiet at night.

I don't know Locanda dell Amorosa, or I would try to compare, but I would recommend either of these hotels. Lucky you, to have this trip to lok forward to!

We also stayed at Relais Fattoria Vignale recently, and really loved it. We had rooms across the street from the main hotel in the annex, and each one had a sweeping view of the Tuscan countryside.

The rooms were medium-sized with comfortable beds, sparingly decorated, but with excellent AC. Service at the hotel was superb, as was the amazing buffet breakfast! We spent many afternoons lazing at the hotel's pool which overlooks olive groves.

The town of Radda itself is quite small-we counted three streets in all, but it worked for us. We found it remote enough, but not so far removed from civilization that you were unable to go elswhere for a drink or snack at the local grocery. Also, Radda is conveniently located for daytrips-- only 45 min. from Florence, a little more to San Gimignano, and about 40 minutes drive from Siena.

If you go, don't miss having pizza at Pizza Michele, which is just down the street from the hotel. Excellent cheap pizza, and a host who really needs his own comedy show. Quite a fun evening.

Good luck with your choice!

I just wanted to add that one of the obvious benefits of staying in a hotel that's in town as opposed to a place like Villa Vignamaggio, is that you don't have to drive after drinking lots of wine at dinner. We were pretty content to either eat at the very good hotel restaurant, or at Pizzeria Michele. There were also other walkable choices right in town. One night we did take a taxi back and forth to a restaurant in Greve, but didn't find it very special.

We stayed at the Relais Frattoria Vignale two years ago. We felt the location was perfect, in walking distance of a couple of restaurants and an easy drive to several other towns. We especially loved having dinner at Gallopappas in Castellina. We enjoyed our terrace looking out over vineyards. We also checked out La Saracina. It was lovely but, would be a drive; albeit and easy one to restaurants, etc.