Autumn here is mostly a list of things to get in before the cold. The grapes are mostly in. The olives are next, so the nets go down under the trees. The walnuts and chestnuts come off the ground, the quinces come off the branch, the wood gets split and stacked by the kitchen door, and the washing comes off the line before the mistral takes it to the next village. You do all of it in the best light of the year, with the vineyards gone red on every slope and the olives turning black on the branch. Then one evening somebody lights the first fire, the neighbors take the hint, and the list is finished.
Sixty-six watercolor-inspired illustrations run from the first fog on the vines to the village lighting up at blue hour. Outside, the country is wide and warm: vineyards in red and orange under perched villages, plane trees meeting over the road, leaves drifted against dry-stone walls, a borie alone in dry grass. Closer in are the things the season puts on the table, each one alone on white: chestnuts in the burr, quinces, persimmons, medlars, a pomegranate, black olives on the branch. Then the collection comes indoors, to a tian on a plank table, a pot on an old enamel range, kindling just catching and a scarf being knitted by the wood stove. There are people in it too. The pétanque player, the pipe smoker, a neighbor sweeping leaves off her step. The palette is ochre plaster, terracotta tile and the faded blue of shutters, with vine-leaf red through the middle and woodsmoke and indigo to close.
For wineries and olive oil producers, boutique hotels and country inns, restaurants and bistros, food and travel editorial, cookbook and stationery publishers, tourism boards, wedding and event designers working in the south of France, and anyone whose brand has an autumn to dress. Autumn in Provence stands on its own. Set beside Cellar & Vine it is the same harvest seen from the village side of the wall, and next to An Italian Summer it is the other half of the year. A single quince or a sprig of bay will carry a label. The allée will hold a wall. The full set will take a brand from the first morning of fog to the last lit window of the year.
