Seasono f mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun…” No poem or poet, arguably, better captures the soft changing of the season than Keats. In Italy, the autumn is greeted secretly by many with a quiet sigh of relief. Hot summer days give way to a cooler, more sympathetic clime, leaves turn golden brown and carpet garden patios and gardeners take to filling wooden crates with golden persimmon, pears and apples. Foragers lace their hiking boots and delve into to the forests, their baskets quickly filling with chestnuts, walnuts, berries and, of course, mushrooms. Throughout the country, as the leaves on the vine yellow and begin to fall, the vendemmia, the grape harvest, begins. Tractor trailers, laden with crates of grapes,
