Kissed by the Tuscan Sun

At five o'clock on a July evening, a welcome breeze finally cuts the lazy heat. We're at the Dievole winery in the tiny village of Vagliagli, nestled in the lush hills outside Siena in Tuscany. Like something from A Midsummer Night's Dream, this magical place exists beyond the reach of normal time. Nothing has changed here for centuries, and nothing likely will. Tourists rarely come to the Valley of Garlic, as the name translates, despite its location in popular Chianti. The meandering road from the city ends here. Vagliagli is its own destination.

We've come to this place to pay homage to its beauty--the wine, the countryside and the women. So far things are moving along splendidly. A farmer who works at the winery leads out a brilliant white horse, his own, and looks up shyly at the models--Lucia, Monika, Laura and Ida. Photographer Guido Argentini begins snapping shots of Monika with the horse, who has taken a liking to her. Then it's off to the grape fields, where Lucia basks in the sun. Her natural beauty complements the vines, which are heavy with clusters of juicy grapes mere months from the harvest. After that we call it a day. No one works too hard here. The name of the winery translates to "God wants." It is very much what we want as well.

"This winery was once purchased for three chickens, two loaves of bread and a silver coin," says Argentini's charismatic cousin Dario Castagno. He would know: He not only lives in Vagliagli, he's a longtime tour guide in Tuscany, suffering 16 years of tourists' questions and comments with humor. (A favorite: "Italians really don't know how to cook Italian food.") He's even written a book about his experiences, Too Much Tuscan Sun, a play on the title of the best-selling book by Frances Mayes. Castagno has plenty of funny stories about Yanks stumbling around the Old World, most of them giddy and wide-eyed. Americans are in the midst of a full-blown love affair with Italy--Tuscany in particular. Milan is crowded with beautiful women, and you'll never lack for entertainment in the Vespa-buzzing madness of Rome. But one big city ultimately resembles another; to truly understand a place, you must go where you can dig your toes into the soil.

The region of Tuscany lies in central Italy, bounded by the Tyrrhenian and Ligurian seas to the west and sleepy Umbria to the east, with Rome a fair distance to the south. It's a place gently bleached by the sun, its rolling hills blanketed with grapevines and cypress trees. Age-old villages rise on the highest points and in the valleys. Much of this area is forested, and in some parts it is illegal to build anything new on undeveloped lands or restore old properties with new architecture. You'll often find old men on the deserted roads, walking crablike to some distant destination. The simplest thing--a fresh fig, a sip of wine--somehow tastes unprecedentedly delicious. This slice of Italy is one of the few places left in the world that prove as sweet and earthy as your imagination would have them.

We make it to the city of Siena in time to catch the young women in full-blown flirting mode during the traditional evening stroll, the passeggiata, using the same coded greetings and glances their mothers and grandmothers used on suitors before them. Although only some 50,000 citizens live here, Siena has a long history of war and conflict with neighboring Florence for regional dominance. Florentines still claim Siena is full of "towers, bells and sons of bitches." Castagno retorts, "We simply remind the Florentines of their defeat at the Battle of Montaperti, which took place in 1260--and add that it could happen again."

The next day Argentini shoots Monika and Ida in a hay field under an amazing blue sky. He captures Lucia picking fruit from a tree, her brunette locks cascading down her naked back, then Laura cuddling with Lucia on a cypress-lined road. And then we head back to town for more heavenly food and wine: carpaccio tartufato--glorious truffles!--with aged balsamic vinegar, and vassoio di formaggi, a plate of cheeses, some hard and crumbly, others light and smooth. Everything here is succulent, wholesome and sensual--especially the women. There's a sense of freedom that makes them blossom. If growing up in the rich earth produces such intense flavor in a grape, what must it do to a person?

Castagno sums it up nicely: "In Tuscany you can do whatever you want. Want to take a nude swim in the river? Dive into the crystal-clear waters. You won't see anybody for hours."