La Raccolta delle Olive

If God created the world in a week, he must have spent the first day perfecting the hills of Tuscany.

Francesca drove us through the town of Casaglia, in the province of Siena, to help her family with this year's olive harvest.

Cypress trees stood with a firm stance on the edge of the roads, marking the division between earth and pavement, like guards protecting the kingdom of the fertile olive groves and the grapevines which were bare and exposed from the latest vendemmia (grape harvest).

As we passed estates that sat on a patchwork of fields atop gently rolling colline (hills), I could not help but wonder what it must have been like to grow up here. Now I know why Tuscans have an inate knowledge for food and wine. The land breathes appreciation for the finest that nature has to offer. One cannot live here without assimilating the aura.


Picking olives in the heart of the Tuscan countryside, with San Gimignano serving as the vista, is indescribable. The view is breathless.

Although the raccolta (harvest) was draining, I would do it again in a heartbeat. Because each tree was planted on a slope, we had to balance ourselves on the slippery slanted ground. Agility was required to reach in between branches and leaves, when trying to reach that one plump black olive, without breaking a precious branch.


When we returned to her town Poggibonsi, there was a festival being held in the square in celebration of the first wines and olive oils of the season. Sommeliers served me Vino Novello while her brother filled my head with information about how to distinguish a quality wine.


Sometimes I get angry with Italy for not providing me with all my requests at a snap, but a day like this does not exist on the other side of the Atlantic.