Reflections on My 39 Years in Umbria

Nature puts on its Sunday attire for the season's last agricultural festa. For its last hurrah it dresses in bright reds and yellows and casts its spell over the entire landscape. The riot of colors and dramatic beauty seem to lighten the hard work and enhance the joy of outdoor work before winter takes hold and puts an end to the jobs in the fields.

Rain had interrupted the olive harvest at our Genius Loci Country Inn this week. It was a festive sight to see the pickers back in the field today, under the brightest possible sun and to hear the chatter and laughter of our crew as well as those on other properties in the distance.

Each day of by-hand picking ends with a run to the stone mill to deliver the olives which will be cold-pressed into a dark green liquid gold and will find their way onto our bruschette, hearty soups and salads and into our sauces, risotti, stews, lentils, spelt and beans... throughout the entire year.

All around, above and below and across the valley the vineyards are putting on their seasonal show. We admire the riotous color combinations and the rage of reds of the exhausted Sagrantino vineyards which produced so generously the finest yield possible. We welcome its well-deserved rest and are enchanted by its final act.

Already by 4PM the shadows are deep and low...the light is stark and diagonal. The pickers seem to rush to finish a good day's work by dark in these short days since last Sunday. The late hours of light seem to end abruptly instead of gradually as they did in the full summer season.

Patchwork hills are laden with vineyards which form stripes, lines, ridges and are sit starkly against and among the uncultivated fields

Nature's rythyms and dictates follow and accept a seasonal logic. Are we willing to do the same?