Our Vineyard Walk, a Pause from Renovation in Tuscany

As many of you may know, Frank and I bought a medieval fortress with a vineyard in northern Tuscany. I am here now overseeing the renovation with my best friend, Forrest. Lucky for me, he's a designer and is very experienced with renovations in Italy. In fact, he designed our first house here in Alassio, Italy 12 years ago. It's daunting and exciting, and quite frankly sometimes I have to pinch myself. When we were looking for a property to renovate, owning a vineyard was never in the plan. After looking for 3 + years, we finally settled on La Prugna, a fortress perched on the top of a mountain with an incredible view. The vineyard, quite frankly, was an afterthought, we were so focused on buying the house, which is an impossible task in Italy (I won't go into details, I will save that for my book Italy is my Boyfriend which I am currently writing), and when I tell you buying this property was so all consuming that the vineyard never crossed my mind, I mean it. In fact when I tell people about the house, I frequently don't even mention the vineyard, or it's buried in the lede.A few months have passed since the purchase, so the renovation is in full swing. I can finally relax and start thinking about the positives...and the vineyard is a big positive. It has finally sunk in the we now have our own wine. I am drinking it every night at aperitivo and am completely mind blown! We will be serving it to all of our students at workshops, and yes, students will be able to take some home. Of course I have already given the task of creating our label to a graphic designer and illustrator, my good friend Penny. She and I have already put together some amazing ideas, and of course, the label will represent The Fortress in all of its glory.I took a walk in the vineyard on a gorgeous fall day, enjoying the beautiful path along the way. For me it was surreal as I never imagined that we would ever own a vineyard; it was not something that I even dreamed of. But sometimes life takes you places you never envisioned. I have always lived my life this way: follow the journey and see where it leads. This path lead us to our vineyard.Go figure.Follow along as we design our label; I may have you help us pick the winner, and of course, as we renovate The Fortress. You can see progress here on my instagram accountIf you want to see the progress in person, we still have spots open at our style photo workshops next summer. Check them out here. They are filling up, so if you're interested, I would grab a spot at the table; you can taste our wine for yourself and enjoy the view of the Tuscan countryside.Cin cin xx