Rapture of Italian Streets

I enjoy putting myself into a world of city streets, where the houses, gathering and gleaming in the sun, play along with the strangers and their expressions of personal taste and style. I always feel like it is a little performance being staged for my own pleasure, but none of the characters need to be taken seriously.

I watch these characters rapturously, while my camera captures the dazzling moments of the spectacle all the way from Foggia to Portofino.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elegant enigma of Genoa, Italy

On a late September day, touched with the heavy promise of rain, I traveled to Genoa with my husband and our wonderful Italian family.

I was intrigued  by Genoa. I was left puzzled. I found Genoa complex, elegant, precise and mysterious, expanding in your imagination like a forbidden winter flower. I found Genoa bold modern, industrial, yet sensual without being sentimental, and heart-stopping gorgeous in the architectural desire through the time in its history.

Genoa is not your down-to-earth Italian reality - it is a dream. 

 

 

 

 

Rodney Strong Vineyards: The Wines of Passion

If there is one mission I take seriously these days here, in Sonoma County, it is the search for the perfect wine. My recent personal discovery is the Rodney Strong Reserve Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley, 2010. The wine is fine and finished and rich and sensuous in texture and imaginative in flavors.

The passionate tension between the respect for history and the need for reinvention that shapes the winery's philosophy and drives the decisions in winemaking techniques, made me fall in love with their wines and join the Collector's Circle Wine Club.

There was magic in the gold and tired against the sky vineyards and wind-drunk olive trees...