A bowl of bright water under cliffs of rosemary and pine. This is Seccione Bay and we watch it gleam from a patio above. We are guests at a vineyard cottage on Elba, a goldfish-shaped island off the Tuscan coast known for its wine and dramatic terrain. After sandy days and silver sunsets, our favorite bottles are from our own evanescent backyard. Owners Monica and Fabio—she is an architect, he a doctor—have cultivated vines on their Portoferraio property since 2014, using a restored wooden press with DIY elegance. Of the 300+ bottles Puntale Vineyard produces per year, none are for sale, but visitors might be encouraged to sample. Each glass brims with the character of our surroundings. “E perché no,” shrugs Fabio. “We make what we like to drink.”

We like it, too. Puntale’s sangiovese is chewy with a sturdy backbone and an acidic spark on the finish: a dark chocolate bar spiced with peppercorns and currants, perfumed by a floral aleatico. Then there is the pale gold ansonica, rich with plums, green strawberries, and salt air. Silky and viscous, it drinks like a good secret you hold in your mouth for a while before sharing. Monica shows us what else grows on the terraced land: wild peach, fig, fennel, pennyroyal. We can taste their influence.

Driving west trades shoreline for dizzy mountain switchbacks. Medieval Marciana Alta sits under the island’s highest peak, a village of terracotta roofs, bell towers, and steep stone steps framed by lush crags. Each summer the town hosts an arts festival, Marciana Borgo D’Arte, making galleries and music halls out of ancient sites. Looking for shelter from a passing shower, we see a granite doorway glowing cobalt. Local artist Luisa Brandi chose Chiesina di San Liborio for her installation, draping the inside of this 12th-century church in silk printed with patterns of light on water. They sway from the ceiling beams in overlapping scrims, drenching an altar fresco of Saint Liberius with kinetic washes of blue. Simultaneously mystical and natural, the tiny mountaintop chapel—rippled by years of erosion—reflects the waves of the Tyrrhenian. Sea meets sky.

2/7/2019