The month of September in the Val d'Orcia

There is a stretch of about four weeks, beginning in the second week of September, when the Val d'Orcia is at its best — and almost no one is looking. The heat has gone. The light has lengthened, but only just. The vines are heavy with what will be next year's wine, and the cypress avenues — the ones photographed to death in July — stand quietly along ridgelines no one is on.

We tend to send our most particular guests in this window. Returning guests, almost without exception, ask for it by name.

What you do with these weeks is its own conversation. Long lunches outdoors, certainly. A morning at Pienza — but the side that no one walks, behind the cathedral, where the view falls away into Monte Amiata. An afternoon at one of three or four estates we know well, where the harvest is in motion and the cellar door is, by arrangement, open to a small group.

It is also the right time to walk. The classic strada bianca between San Quirico and Bagno Vignoni is empty by four. The light at five-thirty is the light photographers chase and rarely catch. Wear proper shoes. Take water. Stop at the small church at Vitaleta, which is locked, but whose facade — with the right villa rented around the right corner — is yours alone for as long as you want it.