Villa Gioianna

23/03/2023

The email address for Villa Gioianna is [email protected].

Anyone wishing to book or seeking more information is encouraged to contact Anna at that address. By contacting her directly with information about the size and ages of your group, you will benefit from a personalized quote not available on the big holiday rental sites.

We are phasing out the use of Facebook and will no longer be checking messages or postings here regularly. Follow us on Instagram and look for our new website!

16/03/2022

A super delicious pasta dish made by Paolo: pasta with sausage, sun dried tomatoes and wild fennel. Forget about any carb phobias for a couple weeks when you come to Umbria!

16/12/2021

Sunset this evening from the fountain behind the Villa.

07/12/2021

Views while planting another 200 mixed bulbs along the border of the vineyard. They will join the hundreds planted last year and the year before. As long as the wild boar don't dig them up, we should have a beautiful showing in March, April and early May.

Yoga platform in full late afternoon sun . . . poised between a balmy clear day and the onset of a brisk, chilly evening. This is a wonderfully relaxing time of day to be out there, soaking up the last warmth of the sun.

This time of year the sun sets behind Gioiella, a lovely view to enjoy as we rush to get the last bulbs in before dark. You can see Mount Amiata to the left, the spire of the Gioiella church and -- just peeking above the skyline -- the cypresses from the Gioiella cemetery.

05/12/2021

Merry Christmas from Arezzo!

21/06/2021

The summer bounty of the Villa's "orto" begins to flow . . . pears are ripening now and will continue with various varietals until late October. Great to eat in many ways: simply sliced, fanned out on a plate and served with our local semi-stagionato pecorino, roasted with an anointing of our local deep red sangiovese and served with mascarpone, baked into a pear tarte tatin, or eaten out of hand with the juices dribbling down your chin.

And what kind of Italian kitchen garden would it be without zucchini and zucchini flowers? Fiori di zucca fritti . . . imagine a balmy summer evening on the back terrace, relaxing with friends and family looking out over the vineyards as the lighting changes when dusk deepens, and scoffing down an embarrassingly unconscionable amount of hot, salty, completely addictive fried zucchini flowers chased with copious quantities with a super-chilled glass of pro secco. This is no time to be prudent!

Use the zukes themselves in Rosanna's famous zucchini pasta sauce, baked into a lasagna al forno, or sauteed as side dish with olio, aglio, pepperoncino, sale, pepe.

27/05/2021

May is one of the best-kept secrets of Umbria . . . warm weather, blue skies, new Spring produce flooding the markets and the exuberant burst of color, fragrance and lush plant life into the landscape. Imagine sitting at the table under the pergola, breathing in the intoxicating scents of honeysuckle, climbing rose and my old-faithful old-fashioned super-fragrant pink rose. The roses, clematis, honeysuckle, wisteria and fruit trees literally explode with life in a joyful embrace of Spring.

22/05/2021

22/05/2021

And . . . breathe! A sigh of relief and one of longing anticipation.

Umbria is opening for guests!

Good news on two fronts: one of our favorite chefs, the lovely and talented Francesca, is reopening her restaurant AND, even better, catering for private meals and events. We are beyond pleased and excited to be able to offer Francesca's superb cuisine as one of the options for weddings, landmark birthday celebrations and other important events at the Villa.

THIS is my “new normal,” basically the old normal: savoring these wonderful dishes with family and dear friends gathered around, relaxing in the Villa’s dining room or back terrace, or set up, rustic style, in the woods overlooking the vineyards behind.

I miss her cooking and I know those who have had the fortune to eat in her restaurant or in their own homes during our California Cooking Tour do as well. Welcome back, la dolce vita!

22/05/2021

21/05/2021

Placid, sunny day in the olive grove at Villa Gioianna . . . idyllic spot for a picnic or a long, languid lunch. Note how neatly we have pruned! We're hoping for a good (and easy to pick) harvest this year. Karen R, my heart breaks for you that you are not here enjoying it now! Wretched Covid ! ! !

18/05/2021

And, final farming post of the day . . . . my artichokes survived the late, unusual, frost we had. I've added another 70! They grow between the fruit trees as a great companion plant because they send their tap roots deep, bringing to the surface nutrients that have slipped down through the soil horizons and concentrating it in their leaves. Plus who can resist eating that prehistoric-looking produce, fresh artichokes? Anyone who has ever been lucky enough to have Rosanna's artichoke lasagna (a real lasagna, not one made of compost), has a food memory that they will probably treasure forever.

18/05/2021

May also means time to plant the vegetable garden, or "orto". Our normal orto is lying fallow this year, having delivered above and beyond the call of duty an abundance of a dozen different vegetables in 2020. This year it’s been given a generous lasagna of layered cardboard (to keep the weeds out), our gorgeous homemade compost and manure and will be allowed to relax until the Fall, when we’ll plant a green manure crop of clover and buckwheat and perhaps some fava beans for next spring.
The new orto is along our border with our winery neighbor, where we have planted tomatoes, cauliflower, peppers, zucchini, more tomatoes, potatoes and -- new this year -- sweet potatoes.
I'm super happy to see that my lilacs have taken along this border. I was inspired by a Cambridge, Massachusetts garden long ago where I lived as a graduate student: it had an 8 foot tall wall of lilacs running along one side of the property, just outside my bedroom window. The scent in the spring was heavenly. I’ve been waiting decades to reproduce it. My take is an ombre effect . . . starting at the top by the woods, the lilacs are a deep deep purple, gradually lightening in color through the spectrum of lavender, blue, lighter blue and pink until they reach the road, where they are white. Can’t wait for a couple of years when they are grown up and blooming gloriously.

18/05/2021

May means wisteria and roses at the Villa . . . . this year the white is blooming its heart out. The fragrance is intoxicating.

14/05/2021

Villa Gioianna is expanding its marketing . . . for a fresh, yet familiar, view of the Villa, please see our new listing on slowhop at https://slowhop.com/en/places/2043-villa-gioianna.html

This is a Polish website but is translated into several other languages. Should you get that wanderlust feeling after years of lock down to venture abroad and for some reason not simply make a beeline for Villa Gioianna 😊, consider strolling through this website to be inspired to visit Poland. The owners have a fresh, new approach to holiday rental sites and have curated the members, selecting only those that meet their criteria of unique, charming homes in beautiful places.

Villa Gioianna is a love story about a house under the Tuscan sun, with faded blue shutters and a white façade. Approached from a cypress-lined avenue

21/02/2021

Probably not the way most of our guests are used to seeing Umbria, but beautiful nontheless. Panicale under snow, photo by Roberto Cicalini.