The Roses of Adalgisa

• Ros­es have accom­pa­nied human­i­ty since the begin­ning.
• Beau­ty, per­fume and thorns: pas­sion and warn­ing.
• In Adal­gisa, ros­es are also a her­itage.

That mix­ture of beau­ty and dan­ger made them irre­sistible to poets and lovers. Ros­es, with their mes­mer­iz­ing per­fume and their warn­ing thorns, have always been with us.

Living heritage among rose bushes

In Adal­gisa, ros­es are a lega­cy. They come from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, as if they’d been passed down along with all the prun­ing shears.
I see my moth­er among the rose bush­es, prun­ing in August, when the cold cuts your fin­gers but the sap begins to flow. Prun­ing dur­ing the wan­ing moon, fol­low­ing its cycle, as if she were prac­tic­ing bio­dy­nam­ic agriculture—but with­out actu­al­ly being so. She does it out of expe­ri­ence, or per­haps because she read about it, I don’t know. But she does it. And I sup­pose that one day I will too.

Springtime on the farm

Today ros­es bloom every­where: in court­yards, along paths, at the ends of vine­yards. Fol­low­ing tra­di­tion.
In Octo­ber and Novem­ber, Adal­gisa is cov­ered in col­or and fra­grance: intense reds, soft pinks, almost trans­par­ent whites, yel­lows, and that peachy hue that isn’t orange, but almost.

Walk­ing through the estate is like walk­ing among ros­es. Each one dif­fer­ent, each one alive.

“I don’t know why there are so many ros­es, but with­out them this place wouldn’t be the same.”

I don’t know why ros­es are such a con­stant com­pan­ion. Per­haps because they rep­re­sent every­thing: pas­sion, ten­der­ness, thorns, time, endur­ing beau­ty.

And I have some­thing I still need to do: make rose­wa­ter.
The next post will be about that—how I made it, and whether it worked or not.