Behind the scenes
A stroll around the estate with Guido Rudolphi.
Some guests arrive, take a look around and leave. And then there is Guido Rudolphi — a well-known name in Swiss IT, a curious traveller by vocation — who, when he called in at the estate, wanted to understand everything: how people live here, what is grown, and why a fourteenth-century tower is still standing quite so beautifully.
The result is this video: ten minutes of strolling, chatting and tasting, with the camera rolling and no script whatsoever.
The walk.
It begins on the drive, as it does for every guest: the farmhouse appearing through the trees, the stone walls, the story of the estate — forty hectares of woodland, vineyards and olive groves — and of the family who look after it. Guido listens, asks questions, stops to run his hand over the stones of the tower. “Every corner here tells a story,” we tell him. He doesn’t seem convinced: he wants to check them one by one.
The citrus garden.
It is the first stop that wins him over: trees laden with yellow fruit, picked there and then and sniffed the way you would a loaf fresh from the oven. It is the very garden that gives us our lemon liqueur and the mandarinetto — the one from the lovers’ wood.
The rooms and the table.
Inside, the striking sight of beamed ceilings and bare stone: the Sala Malatesta laid for dinner, the oval chairs, the warm light. The ending is just as it should be: the round table, the coffee, the little wine biscuits from the farm shop, and a quick word that turns into twenty — talk of the ceiling timbers, of the countryside, of just how much it is worth living in a place like this (“it is worth it, I’ll give you that,” he concedes at one point).
The toast.
Out come the glasses, out comes the estate’s red, and then comes the moment when the video could end — except it doesn’t: because farewells here take their time, and “see you again” is no mere pleasantry. It is a plan. Watch it right to the end: it is the most honest way we have of showing you what a day here is really like.
