I knew by the ring of the church bells that it was time for lunch, but I was in no rush to climb down from the olive tree. The view from up there—rolling green hills splashed with red-gold autumn vineyards and the distant ivory hilltop town of Montepulciano against the warm blue sky—was divine. I’d been picking olives in this grove since early morning and had the scratches on my arms, the buzzy vibration in my palms, and full crates of purple-black, gold-green fruit beneath the trees to prove it. The traditional Italian harvest method, called brucatura, pulling one olive at a time off the full branches, had brought me to a euphoric state. Back home in Los Angeles, it takes hours of yoga to get this feeling. But here in southern Tuscany, it came to me through good old fashioned farm work, by pitching in with the olive harvest, or as the Italians say, the raccoltta.
The raccoltta yields one of Tuscany’s most treasured products: olive oil. It begins the first week of November, which was when I arrived to volunteer at Reniella, in Montefollonico (population 700), nestled in the Chiana Valley. Reniella is an organic agriturismo, a working farm with guest accommodations, vineyards, fruit trees, a vegetable garden, a flock of sheep, a couple of pigs, chickens, and 400 olive trees.
With such a workload, the British transplants who own Reniella—Elfride (“Elf”) and her husband Bob Vaughan—welcome travelers to help out. They offer harvest volunteers two choices: full board and one of the spare rooms in their house for free, or visitors can rent their adjacent two bedroom agriturismo for a break in price, depending on how much work they’re up for doing. Since I was traveling solo and glad to find a bargain (especially in Tuscany), I went for the free option.
Living and working with the Vaughan family, which includes their seven year-old son Owain, a precocious Harry Potter look-alike, gave me the chance to get an insider’s experience of Tuscan country life. Unlike other Montefollonico ex-pats—British, American, and German retirees who bought property, hired locals to do the heavy work, and kicked back to indulge in their “Under The Tuscan Sun” dream—the Vaughans have blended in with the town. They took on the challenge of Reniella five years ago without any previous farming experience. What they did have was loads of energy, a passion to learn, and, most importantly, a shared sense of humor about the whole venture. “That first year,” Bob told me, laughing, “I butchered a pig with a knife in one hand and a manual in the other.”
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