On a warm April day, with poplar pollen cruising through the air like snowflakes in midwinter, Graziella Traini welcomed me to her farm in Montedinove, in the heart of Marche, a hilly region half the size of Tuscany, in central Italy. All around, towns and farmhouses stood on hilltops like meerkats scanning the horizon; as far as I could see, man-made structures blended with forests and sunflower fields, with winding roads drawing gentle lines in the landscape.

Traini offered me a glass of water on the terrace of her stone house and pointed to small blossoming trees a few hundred meters away. There. At 67, the farmer is one of the few people who still cultivate the pink apple of the Sibillini mountains.