Over 20 years ago while vacationing in Umbria…

…Lee and I stumbled upon the ruins of an 12th century castle and its surrounding Borgo. It was for sale by a couple who had fallen in love with its history and had hoped but were unable to bring it back from its state of abandon. We were immediately beguiled by the ivy-covered arrow slits of the castle walls, the perfectly hand chiseled stones of the medieval towers, the crumbling steeple of the nearby church. As we bushwhacked our way through the overgrown brush of the derelict property, smells of wild mint, thyme, sages, ancestral offshoots of medieval herb beds, wafted around us only deepening the enchantment.

It was crazy. We had no intention of ever owning a vacation property, much less one that was a destroyed castle 6000 miles away from our roots in Austin, Texas. But love is love and magic is powerful. Here we are over 20 years later.

We slowly restored the buildings of the Borgo, left the ruins of the castle as a garden of mystery, and pruned the grove of millennial olive trees until they were producing this exquisite oil. 

Castiglione Ugolino turned out not to be merely a vacation property. It is our second home, a place where we raised two daughters and where we have made deep and lasting connections. We are still tweaking, adding, uncovering and discovering this treasure and know that we are just its caretakers for this brief moment in its long history.