Our first home base in Sicily was the Barone di Villagrande Vineyard on one of the slopes of Mt. Etna. I loved everything about it and was sorry when we moved on yesterday. We had a beautiful and spacious room with a panoramic view of the terraced vineyards, the town below, and the sea beyond, which I’ve shown in some prior posts. The food and wine pairings were terrific, the staff members were uniformly attentive, friendly, and helpful, and the grounds had the distinctive touches that make a place live on in memory—like the majestic 139-year-old cypress tree, shown above, that towered over our outdoor balcony and the bottlebrush tree with its many buzzing bees and the old well, shown below, next to the patio seating area where we enjoyed wine and conversation with the Birdwatcher and Zippy the Insegnante. And the lawn beyond was an ideal place to sweat out the toxins when the Capo dei Capi put us through our yoga paces.
The acid test for any place is whether you would recommend it to friends and hope to return some day. The Barone di Villagrande Vineyard easily passes that test.
Webner House 