No one talks shop at first.
Forks clink.
Slowly, the conversation starts.
Lucia admonishes Edam lightly about marking too many parcels as “needs attention”, and Edam fires back that vines, like people, deserve to be listened to before they’re corrected. I think they’re sleeping together, and if they’re not, they need to because the air pretty much crackles with their chemistry.
Wine appears almost as an afterthought.
Alessia pours a Vermentino—pale, chilled, barely twelve percent alcohol. Bright and saline, the kind of wine made for working lunches, not contemplation.
The pours are modest.
At estates like this, no one pretends abstinence is virtuous. You drink. You just do it smartly.
“This is from the coastal block,” Alessia tells Renzo and me. “Early harvest. It awakens the palate.”
She’s right. The wine is crisp, almost bracing, cutting cleanly through the oil and herbs.
Renzo lifts his glass. “It doesn’t dull the senses for sure…it sharpens them.”
We ask questions without making it feel like an interrogation from the top brass.
Conversation drifts naturally—harvest forecasts, a stuck fermentation from the year before that everyone still winces at, and a university trial Alessia’s running with Pisa on drought-resistant rootstocks.
I notice, as I’m sure Renzo does, how her team looks to Alessia without realizing they’re doing it. It’s not deference or fear but trust.
This isn’t a hierarchy built on titles but on competence and mutual respect.
This is where Alessia is most comfortable—not at the Palazzo in Florence or a fancy party. She’s a competent winemaker and an astute businesswoman in the wine industry. She’s aware of how the market moves, what the trends are.
“I think we should think about rosé as an entry for younger people to learn about wine. They may balk at paying fifty euros on a bottle, but twenty euros a bottle shared amongst four? That could work!” she muses.
Edam wrinkles his nose. “I see some of the winemakers making their labels all kitschy and pink to attract the TikTok watchers. Please tell me we won’t do that.”
Alessia laughs and looks at me. “That’s a branding decision, so we need to ask the boss about it.”
They all turn to me. Ah, this is a test, I realize, and so does Renzo, who smirks.
“The Palazzo will always bow to the vision of the winemaker,” I say, my eyes on her, holding her gaze, keeping her with me. “But the House of Alighieri will never be gaudy, Edam, so I wouldn’t worry about the labels being too pretty.”
I pass the test because the conversation moves on—not away from me, but forward—into hiring for the upcoming harvest.
Edam mentions numbers first. “We’ll need around forty pickers at peak. Fewer for the upper parcels.”
“Allora! Alright! But only if they’re trained,” Alessia argues immediately. “I don’t want speed over judgment. Not this year.”
“Can’t you just contact the company the other Alighieri estates use to bring in migrant workers? I hear they usually bring in good people,” Renzo offers when Alessia makes it clear that the harvest at Pietra Alta isn’t a free-for-all.
Lucia snorts. “We don’t put out a call and take whoever shows up with a pair of hands and a tolerance for early mornings.”
“Alessia is meticulous about who touches her fruit. Just as careful as she is during green harvest. Just as exacting as she is in the sorting room,” Hortensio explains.
My wife rolls her eyes. “You make me sound so difficult.”
“Not difficult but exacting, as you should be.” There’s pride in Edam’s voice.
Renzo and I get a class on how Tenuta Pietra Alta functions.
