It's official! - Italy here I come!

Hello! So some exciting news...after a few e-mails and correspondence, I've been chosen and accepted a farm in Italy to stay and work at for just over 3 weeks. Behold, La Distesa, located not too far from the city of Ancona, an east coast city of Italy.

This place was a fit for me schedule wise (being gone in Sept. was more realistic than October as far as getting time off from work and grape harvest time goes), looks beautiful, and the person e-mailing me seemed to have a nice sense of humor. (Don't even get me started on the first response I received...basically the guy was "disgusted" that I would even consider making wine in the states and thought my photography would be "stealing the privacy" of hard working farmers...).

Here is the description:
Certified organic farm and agritourism which produces mainly wine and olive oil. There are 18 hectares with vineyard, olive grove, lucerne, vegetables and woodland. Help needed mainly in the vineyard (pruning, tying up vines and harvesting) and olive grove (harvesting). We eat together in the communal dining room, mainly using our own vegetables. Accommodation in own apartment, length of stay by arrangement. Children and pets welcome. English and Spanish spoken.

So I bought my ticket yesterday...and The countdown begins! 43 more days! I'll be away for just over 3 weeks...I'm really looking forward to learning about what goes into selecting grapes, cultivating them, and harvesting them first hand. I checked the blog that was linked to to the web site and at least according to Firefox's translation, the guy is a psychedelic winemaker. Pretty sure this is going to be AWESOME. Wish me luck!

*Photo above from La Distesa