The Perfect Collaboration
COLLISION 00013
As any traveler can attest, our most memorable and meaningful moments away from home are often the ones that never make an agenda. They materialize circuitously. We instinctively follow through on that one off-script, extemporaneous nudge and before we know it we’ve arrived at a place or in front of a person who it suddenly seems was always meant to find us.
As was the case with my visit to Amina Winery in Vagliagli, a postcard-perfect hamlet in the heart of Tuscany. My mom and I came to taste here at the insistence of our sweet and charming but persistent Tuscan tour guide, Ema. Just the evening before, Ema had more than proven himself by taking us last-minute to taste at Fontebelvedere, an elegant, laid-back vineyard that had it all, including wide-shot-worthy sweeping views of his hometown, Siena.
Amina felt special the moment we arrived. It is a small organic, female owned and operated vineyard producing under the label Complicità. Complicità translates into complicity, chosen quite deliberately. Here, in this small pocket of Tuscany, winemakers worked together pooling resources, insights and passion to ensure their neighbors were as successful as they were. The name Complicità celebrates the spirit and success of that long-running collaboration.
Amina’s family-run property includes a bed and breakfast, olive groves and of course, a vineyard. Its founder and owner, Cinzia Manca, is a local, self-made Vignaiola: a female artisan Italian winemaker and producer.
Cinzia gave us a tour of the grounds and warmly led an easy-going tasting, expertly weaving in just the right amount of detail and anecdote. By the time we had finished our tasting, she had elevated herself in my eyes from fearless female entrepreneur to outright badass.
I admired her independent, rebellious streak. I would later learn that fewer than 25% of vineyards in Italy are owned or managed by a woman. As a new founder myself, I was also fascinated by the way she seemed to do it all. The left brain and the right brain. She was a vintner and a visionary, fussing about our comfort and talking cement tank fermentation; a local businesswoman and a graceful host to guests from around the world.
She was proof of a concept I had been circling, but couldn’t yet name.
I had just launched The Untethered Traveler’s website weeks before. That baby step alone for me made me feel excruciatingly exposed and vulnerable. Yet, here I was standing in front of a woman who had been doing for years what I one day hoped to do. Build. Create. Thrive.
I believe when we take the right steps forward toward our purpose and calling, the universe bends, designs and arranges a path forward alongside us. I had found Ema. Ema, despite my control-freak tendencies, had managed to tame and influence me just enough to sit me at this exact tasting table in front of this exacting inspiration.
A perfect collaboration indeed.
Complicità.
