A foodie autumn break in Abruzzo, Italy

Italians say the best pecorino cheese is made from the milk of sheep that graze in wild places. I had no doubt that this was the case with the pale, aromatic slice I ate for breakfast, alongside a spoonful of pear conserve scented with saffron from crocuses grown in Gabriella's garden. There was also ricotta, homemade bread, cured meats and almost rudely ripe, intensely sweet persimmons from the tree we could see through the window.

As we were finishing our second coffee, Mario, who had clearly been up for hours, pulled up a chair and talked to us with such passion about their land and their oil – their lifeblood, he called it, matter-of-factly – that we wanted nothing more than to walk the land and taste its produce.

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