The owner and winemaker, Paolo Montioni, and his wife met us upon our arrival with warm welcomes…read moreand gave us a quick tour of their olive harvesting and olive oil production. We lucked out to be here during their olive oil season. We then started a private wine tasting with Paolo to taste 5 of his wines and 2 olive oils on toasted breads (bruschetta). It was only €10! He was such a great host! Nothing beats having the owner and winemaker lead these wine tastings. It was informal and fun. He even made lunch reservations for us at a nearby restaurant. And lunch at the restaurant he booked us in was fantastic too! We all loved his wines and ended up ordering 6 cases to be shipped home.

We visited Montioni Frantoio e Cantina with family members on our last pre-COVID trip to Italy…read more Here we enjoyed a fabulous food and wine tasting -- our pranzo (mid-day meal that day). Paolo Montioni is an excellent host! Their Umbrian wines and olive oils are excellent. I have also ordered wine by email from Montioni for delivery at home. The process was easy, invoiced and paid through PayPal, and shipped to my front door. As Paolo last wrote to me: "We are safe and we are working very hard ......the Nature is outstanding in this moment." We look forward to our next visit to Montefalco and Montioni!

An amazing small museum that also provides a documentary movie on the history of Perugia and the…read morering. You can get up close and personal to so many artifacts. Gold, silver, manuscripts, etc. Just a lovely museum that is worth the 45 minutes. Will give a deeper and richer understanding of Perugia.

I brought my pilgrimage group here after visiting Assisi for two days and it was such a welcomed…read moredining highlight for all of us. The olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and wine were superb, and so was the warm and local hospitality that was shown our group. I'll need to return the next time. I visit the Umbrian Valley.

We visited this winery a couple of years ago and had a very nice time touring and tasting. The day…read morewe visited there was some rain so we couldn't tour the vineyard, unfortunately. But still me had a memorable time and hope to return one day. We opened the last of the bottles we ordered last night in celebration of our daughter's visit. We try to have a bottle whenever she visits because she was there with us. Memories that will be with us forever. The wines were very good, by the way. I would certainly do it all over again and hope to do so soon. Grazie mille, Tilli. A presto.

I spent two glorious weeks as an artist in residence here in December 2012. Marina and her family…read morewere excellent hosts, going out of their way to make sure that I and the other artists felt welcome and supported during our time at Ginestrelle. The location, a converted farmhouse in the Umbrian hills, is beautiful and inspiring. Walks through the countryside were a daily part of most artists' routines. The artists who attended the residency at the same time as me came from all over the world, and having the chance to get to know them and their work was one of the highlights of my stay here. The studio space got pretty cold the second week I was there - one of the drawbacks of attending late in the year. But it was quite enjoyable to sit by the fireplace in the common room and chat with the other artists on the wintery evenings. Walking through the hills after an unexpected snowfall was absolutely delightful. Assisi is about a 15-minute drive away. It's a small town that attracts a lot of tourists based on its adorableness and its connection with Saints Francis and Clare. In the off-season, when the hordes of tourists are gone, it becomes even more charming. In December there were a couple of small Christmas markets and some other holiday-related events.

Arnaldo-Caprai, the home (birthplace?) of Sagrantino wine, was our second stop on our day of wine…read moretasting. We ran over at the first winery, and Arnaldo-Caprai was very understanding and gave us a warm welcome even though we were over an hour late. The winery is on a large and sprawling estate with a spacious wine tasting room. Our tour was approximately 30 minutes long - we visited the various areas of the winery where they ferment the grapes, bottle the wine and also wandered a little bit into the vineyards. Our wine tour ended with wine tasting in a private tasting room and lunch. The lunch was the perfect lunch to accompany the wines - it was a light lunch of salumni, cheese, bruschetta, panzanella and grilled vegetables. We tasted four wines, including an extra taste of a sparkling wine that Arnaldo-Caprai makes. The Rosso Riserva that we tasted was the universal favorite amongst the group, and we bought a fair amount of wine to enjoy both while in Italy and to have shipped back to the U.S. The wine was all very reasonably priced.