ON LOCATION: Shooting Spring ‘17 with Garnet Hill, PART 2: TUSCANY

In September of 2016, our photography team spent three weeks shooting Spring ‘17 swimwear and clothing collections in two unforgettable settings: the Greek island of Naxos, and Tuscany.

You can work 12-hour days with nowhere to sit. You can endure steamy heat and bounce for hours along cobblestone roads in a rented van crammed with photography equipment. And still, friends and coworkers will not countenance your complaints …  because, after all, you are in Tuscany.

One of the most naturally beautiful places on earth.

Castello Di Argiano in Tuscany, one of two vineyards where the Spring ’17 Garnet Hill catalog was photographed.

Better still, you are a guest, as we were, at Castello Di Argiano, the estate of Giuseppe Maria Sesti – astronomer, author, winemaker – his daughter Elisa, co-director of the vineyard, and his wife Sarah, a fine gardener and cook.

Guiseppe takes us on tour.

Sesti is among a small but growing number of biodynamic wineries in Italy where constellations and the celestial calendar are factored into strategies for planting, growing, and harvesting grapes.

PHENOMENA commemorates a significant astronomical event that occurred on September 6, 2005 during harvest. After sunset, the conjunction of the planets venus and jupiter, the star spica (the ear of cohn) together with the sickle of the new moon. The event took place over the constellation Virgo.during the year of harvest.

The elements of a Tuscany wine cellar: stone, glass, grapes, oak, time.

Giuseppe has written five books on ancient calendar systems. He analyzes the influence of the moon on vines and the making of wine, minimizing sulphites along the way. His tables of small and large moon cycles are employed in agriculture to reduce the use of chemicals on the land.

Good morning!

Cypress trees and border hedges at Castello Di Argiano

Serenity now.

The Sesti estate is 254 acres, encompassing vineyards, olive groves and woodland. The vineyards are situated on the southern slopes of Montalcino, where some of the most notable Brunello wines originate.

An offering at harvest time.

The Glorious Constellations: History and Mythology by Giuseppe Maria Sesti

The Tuscan countryside in September.

After a long day, a fine dinner in a former chapel at the estate.

Long legs in a tiny Italian car. The car is an Autobianchini.

The photo crew, on location.

Ancient stonework is everywhere, delighting photographers. In places, historic artifacts were long ago subsumed by homes built around them.

While driving home one night, our crew caught sight of a herd of 20 wild boar in the headlights. They disappeared into the vineyards before we could get a photo.

“You may have the universe if I may have Italy,” said composer Giuseppe Verdi. We’ll take Tuscany, the embodiment of our mantra: Beautiful, Naturally.™ Watch for the photography in our spring ’17 catalog.

~~~

Epilogue

Returning from balmy Tuscany to New Hampshire in late September, we walked across the street from the parking lot to the Garnet Hill office and heard a clack-clack-clacking as cars drove past. It couldn’t be, yet there it was …

People had begun switching over to studded snow tires.