An August Night in the Hills
My name is Chiara Bevilacqua, and I grew up in the Euganean Hills, among vineyards, olive trees, and the warm scent of volcanic soil. As a child, I spent my summers at my grandmother Assunta’s house, just outside Arquà Petrarca, in a garden full of herbs, old roses, and fruit trees she tended as carefully as she tended the people she loved.
Every year, on the night of August 10th — the night of San Lorenzo, when Italians say the sky weeps shooting stars — my grandmother would wake me gently and take me outside, among the plants still wet with dew. “Look closely,” she’d say, “because every falling star leaves a drop on the earth, and that drop, gathered before dawn, turns to gold in the hands of those who know how to wait.” Together we’d collect the dew from the calendula petals and the rosehip leaves, and she would use it, along with oils she pressed by hand, to prepare a golden balm she kept in a small amber glass bottle on the kitchen windowsill.
The First Drop
I never knew whether that story was entirely true, but I know the oil worked. She used it, my mother used it, and for years I used it too, without ever imagining it could become anything more than a family secret.
Everything changed three summers ago, after my grandmother passed away, when I found her recipe notebook tucked in a kitchen drawer. Her notes, written in pencil, spoke of measures, moon phases, and infusion times. I decided to pick that knowledge back up — this time with the precision of certified organic ingredients, laboratory testing, and rigorous care at every stage of the process — without ever losing the spirit of those August nights.
The first batch of oil I blended, in my small workshop among the hills, I named Prima Goccia — the First Drop. It was, quite literally, the first drop to fall from my pipette: golden, rich, scented with lavender and orange blossom, exactly as I remembered it from childhood.
Gocce di Stella, Today and Tomorrow
Today, Gocce di Stella is a small artisan workshop with big ambitions. Every product begins with organic ingredients grown in the Euganean Hills or nearby, worked in small batches following the lunar calendar, just as my grandmother did.
Prima Goccia is only the beginning. In the years ahead, new products will follow — always few, always essential, always made to last. Because every drop, like every star, deserves to be gathered with care.