Fast forwarding to 2001, we moved to
Poggio Etrusco, our farm near Montepulciano. The previous owner was from Amalfi and had brought with her a small lemon tree in a pot. After a number of years of living here, I suppose it had grown too much to move it and she was going back to Amalfi anyway.
Unlike Italy’s coastal areas, Tuscany’s winters are much too cold to plant citrus in the ground, so everyone brings the pots into a winter hothouse (called a
serra). Noble families with many lemon trees in large terracotta pots built a
limonaia, much like the