The Millers planned to relocate to Tuscany and happened upon a plot of land, complete with acres of olive groves. It would lead to a new family business. Susan Zelouf paid them a visit.
What would it take for you to up sticks and leave home, to trade in a successful career and comfortable house and vibrant community and begin again in another country, navigating a curious new culture and a language you don’t pretend to speak, to reimagine life under the Tuscan sun, as the Tupperware skies of Ireland, your extended family, friends and familiar landmarks blur in the rear view mirror? Are you made of stern stuff? A Dublin-based couple we know decided to find out.
Uno dei borghi piu belli d’Italia boast the red and white signs punctuating the medieval walls of Capalbio’s centro storico, but Ed and Laura Miller didn’t need to read Italian to prompt them to return year after year to “one of Italy’s most beautiful villages” in the Maremma, part of the southern Tuscan province of Grosseto, 150km south of Florence, an hour and a half ’s drive from Rome’s Fiumicino Airport. Capalbio feels loved-up, with proudly maintained streets, shops, bars and restaurants. The town is warmly welcoming to visitors, from daytripping stranieri to staycationing Italians, including famous names in the Italian arts, some who own villas near the pristine, exclusive beaches or hidden within acres of lush vineyards and olive groves. Wondering what blow-ins like la famiglia Miller saw in the place, we’d planned a short visit. Our flight arrived two hours late, so by the time we settled into our Capalbio guesthouse, we had little hope of a late dinner. Stumbling into Il Frantoio, a bar restaurant with a crackling fire and a curated selection of books for sale, we met one of the owners, Ado. When we told him we were visiting a couple who’d relocated from Ireland, Ado insisted we take a selfie with him to send to Ed and Laura … turns out Il Frantoio is their local! Had the Millers adopted the Tuscan folk or was it the other way around? Despite the hour, the kitchen sent out a generous plate of salumi, cured meats, from prosciutto to cinghiale (wild boar) and pane (bread), while Ado kept our wine glasses topped up. We fall in love too easily, admittedly, but Capalbio is already proving hard to resist. We find ourselves idly googling properties for sale in the area over morning cappuccino.
French artist Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) spent almost 30 years in Capalbio, creating Il Giardino dei Tarocchi (the Tarot Garden), a fantastical site-specific sculpture park in an abandoned quarry, down the pitted dirt road from where the Millers bought a shell of a house tucked into a grove of 900 neglected ancient olive trees. Inspired by the work of Antonio Gaudi, Saint Phalle invited artist friends from around the world to help her realise her dreamy vision, a garden of almost five acres on a Garavicchio slope populated with monumental works in colourful ceramic tiles, glass shards, mirror fragments and found objects, embodying the 22 Major Arcana tarot cards. Over the years, she employed many local craftsmen and women to construct the elaborate sculptures, the tallest pieces measuring about 15 metres high. Open between March and October, the Tarot Garden attracts visitors seeking total immersion in Saint Phalle’s life’s work.
It wasn’t the 2018 heart attack 51-year-old Ed Miller had that propelled the couple to reassess their lives. They’d long entertained thoughts of living in faraway places, even as they raised two children in a Dublin city centre home, their summers spent in a Waterford thatched cottage with an infinity pool, a greenhouse and vegetable garden Ed cultivated whenever he could tear himself away from his work as a solicitor. But this out-of-the-blue near-death experience surely propelled the family towards the next chapter.
Fast forward a scant few years, and the Millers have become la famiglia Miller, their home a luminous contemporary villa filled with a vibrant collection of art and furniture, embraced by twisted, slow-growing, silvery green olive trees and young grapevines.
So began the search for a property with land to cultivate, a new occupation for Ed’s life post corporate law, and opportunities for Laura’s talents in branding and passion for interior design. Their fledglings (now teenagers) ready for further education could consider where to study, either in Dublin or another part of the world. They dropped a pin on Tuscany, because, well, Tuscany! (If you’ve ever overheard Tuscans in conversation, you’d become enamoured by the softly guttural “ch” sound, referred to as the “gorgia Toscana” or Tuscan throat. To fall for a Tuscan, ask him to say, over and over, softly: “Coca-cola con una cannuccia corta corta” – Coca-cola with a short short straw. You may never want to drink anything else!)
Even speaking fluent Italian, foreigners hoping to invest in a second home in Italy may overlook potential pitfalls, blinded by the light and local colour. To negotiate the labyrinthine Italian bureaucracy, solicitor Ed enlisted the help of an Italian intermediary, once they’d set their sights on a property, a small farm set on a Garavicchio hillside overlooking the sea with views of the village of Capalbio, historically positioned between a rock (the Medici family of Florence) and a hard place (papal Rome). Fast forward a scant few years, and the Millers have become la famiglia Miller, their home a luminous contemporary villa filled with a vibrant collection of art and furniture, embraced by twisted, slow-growing, silvery green olive trees and young grapevines.
We’d venture to call this oil afrodisiaco, tasting of the Mediterranean scrub and sea.
The fruiting trees produce just enough organic, cold-pressed Sant’Angelica olive oil to fill 700 (500ml) beautifully designed bottles, labelled with a print of one of the Miller’s favourite paintings, which hangs in their kitchen, by Dublin-based urban artist Al Maser (@maserart).
If a foodstuff can embody all that is good about life in the slow lane, it is La Famiglia Miller’s single estate Sant’Angelica extra virgin olive oil. Drizzle threads of the green gold condiment onto tender leaves, ideally harvested minutes before from the kitchen garden, and tuck in. We’d venture to call this oil afrodisiaco, tasting of the Mediterranean scrub and sea, sprigs of rosemary with an earthy dusting of aromatic Maremmano herbs, a tingle that lingers on the lips and catches at the back of the throat, in a (dare we say) sexy way. Expensive, yes, but anything poetic made with time and sun and the exigencies of imprevidibile nature is necessarily costly, rare.
Weather, climate change, pruning, black fly, water … there are myriad factors affecting both the fruit yield and the flavour of the resulting press, affecting cost. While the single estate olive oil from the Miller’s Sant’Angelica farm is pricey, it is impossible to compare the complexity and personality of an oil ensouled by the hand of the maker to that of olive oils produced in huge quantities by the world’s largest producers. This is an oil to be gifted to the best of friends, taking pride of place on one’s table, used sparingly on farm-to-fork meals, shared by chefs in-the-know with guests, or, if you’re so inclined (as we are), stashed jealously in the back of a dark larder, used judiciously until next year’s yield comes to market. www.santangelica.ie, @agricolasantangelica