Sting and his wife Trudie Styler are having lunch at their Tuscan estate, Il Palagio. Their usual spot is under the oak tree on the terrace overlooking their vineyard and olive groves; their three-storey yellow-stone villa, which dates back to the 16th century, sits behind them. But it’s too windy today so a table has been made up on the loggia, where they’re gathered round a small table, drinking wine next to a gurgling fountain.
The 17-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, 73, who has sold more than 100 million records as a solo performer and frontman of The Police, has come from his recording studio located over the winery and is dressed in blue overalls. “My grandfather [a shipwright] wore a boiler suit 24/7. Went to church in a boiler suit. I feel like I’m adopting my grandfather’s [look],” he says. The singer directs me to sit on his left and shyly gazes off into the distance for much of our conversation, shooting me occasional sideways looks. But there’s no denying the gravitational pull of his presence at the table; he brings as much boyish mischief to his replies as sincerity. “We’re competitive,” he says, of his dynamic with his wife, with whom he has been in a relationship for 43 years; they have four children, aged from 29 to 41.
“No, we’re not,” Styler replies. At 71, the actor and film producer, originally from Worcestershire, looks just as good as he does, in a pink corduroy Chloé jacket and jeans. “Little Miss Bossy Boots”, as she calls herself at one point, is more naturally outgoing, although she’s happy to let her husband take the lead too. He is, after all, Sting. “Now we’re arguing about being competitive,” he deadpans.
Sting has just flown in from a sold-out gig in Abu Dhabi. It’s the latest date on his 18-month Sting 3.0 world tour in which he’s dispensed with a big band in favour of just him and two musicians. “You have to work harder in a three-piece,” he says. “On tour I’m doing the job of a 25-year-old. I’m happy to do it.” His next date is a month away in Tulum. “We tailor the tours so there are breaks where we can get together,” he says, nodding to his wife.
“Unlike when we were younger, we don’t like to be apart longer than a couple of weeks,” says Styler. “It’s like a waiting room when I come to Il Palagio on my own.”
The couple, who also own houses in London, Malibu, New York, the Lake District and Wiltshire, visit Il Palagio throughout the year, but they spend most of their time here in August with family. “It’s the diametric opposite to our life in Britain: the weather, the food, the vibe,” says Sting. “We love England. But to have this alternative is perfect.” They fell in love with Italy long before they bought the estate. Sting had performed and recorded in Italy; Styler had worked in Rome as a young actor. In 1990 they rented a villa in Pisa where Sting wrote his album The Soul Cages and Styler gave birth to their third child, Eliot. For years they searched for their own place. Il Palagio, despite being run-down when they acquired the 350-hectare estate in the Chianti Colli Fiorentini region in 1997, instantly felt like home.
Since then, they’ve restored the main house (which can be rented; as can its five guesthouses) and replanted the vineyard. The chapel was turned into a gym and meditation space; there’s an outside cinema, tennis court, stables and a lake. In addition to 10 wines, the estate produces olive oil and honey, and there’s a farm shop, pizzeria and food and music venue open to the public.
Now, for the first time, the wines are going on sale in the UK via Il Palagio’s website. Some of them (which range in price from £18.95 to £69.95) take their name from Sting songs. When We Dance is a fruity, floral chianti. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, a crisp rosé spumante. Message in a Bottle was a no-brainer for their 100 per cent Vermentino and 100 per cent Sangiovese; and Sister Moon, a blend of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, was inspired by the biodynamic methods (which follow the lunar calendar) originally adopted on the estate. “It’s just whimsy and a bit of marketing,” says Styler of the names.
We’re having the 2024 Roxanne Bianco with lunch. Styler favours white wine and champagne. “With red I sometimes get migraines,” she says. “I drink white in the daytime,” Sting offers, “but in the evening I prefer a ruminative red.” His favoured Roxanne Rosso is brought out. “I mean the whole thing is a miracle to me,” he continues. “I was brought up in industrial Tyneside next to a shipyard. The idea that you could plant something in the ground, grow it and consume it is magic. Owning a vineyard was never on the cards. But it’s remarkable to look out at those fields and think we’re going to drink that one day.”
Sting grew up the son of a milkman and a hairdresser in Wallsend, Newcastle upon Tyne (he’s joked that his Geordie accent only comes out now when he’s angry) – he comes from a beer-drinking culture. “I’m still learning [about wine],” he says. Styler grew up in a council house, the daughter of a factory worker and a dinner lady: “Ours wasn’t a wine-drinking family either. My mother drank sherry at Christmas and the occasional Snowball.” Her father did manage a 110-acre farm during the war. “I was always around my dad. I had my own veg patch,” she says. “When you grow up not afraid to grow things, you’re not daunted [by a vineyard].”
They relied on experts including the late US biodynamic consultant Alan York. “He said, ‘You’ve got grapes where there should be olives and olives where there should be grapes. You’re going to have to spend an awful lot of money to fix this,’” says Sting. Did they understand what they were getting into? “No. But Alan inspired us. The idea of finding somewhere less than optimum and making it better appealed to me. And boy, have we made it better.”
The wine has been reviewed favourably by experts, particularly Sister Moon and Sacred Love (100 per cent Merlot). “My greatest pleasure is inviting people who know about wine and watching them drink it,” says Sting. “Because celebrity wine – it’s a low bar. Let’s face it. They drink the wine and go: ‘Is this yours?’ Yes, it’s ours! It does so well, which is very gratifying. We’re much too competitive [to settle for average].” “If you’re going to do something, do it well,” says Styler.
In some ways the estate has become an extension of their relationship, itself a source of fascination. It’s more than 30 years since Sting first talked about tantric sex and that’s still what most people associate them with. The couple married in 1992 but have been together since 1982. “20 August is our wedding anniversary,” says Styler. A few years ago “we started to share it with the locals: cycling over to the farm shop, Sting getting out his guitar. There’s a pizzeria. Folks come to enjoy the night. They like the idea of [us] sharing that celebration with our community.”
“I think part of the brand of this [place] is the romance of a couple who’ve been married for 400 years… how long have we been married?” Sting jokes. What keeps them together? “He’s my best friend as well as my beloved,” says Styler. This elicits mock sobs from Sting. “So keep living up to it, darling!” Styler chides.
As a producer, Styler made her name with films including Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Duncan Jones’s Bafta-winning Moon (2009). In 2011 she co-founded Maven Screen Media in order to support female filmmakers and this year is taking Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut Eleanor the Great to the Cannes Film Festival. “My work in the trenches has paid off,” she says. “Opportunities in the arts are coming through every day.” Styler’s first documentary, Posso Entrare? An Ode to Naples, in which she interviews the city’s inhabitants including Gomorrah author Roberto Saviano, streamed on Disney+ earlier this year.
She admits she dreaded turning 70, but “now I’m quite cheerful about it”. “Neither of us has picked up our bus passes yet,” says Sting. “We want to live life to its fullest as long as we can.”
As for his songwriting, “you’re always searching for inspiration”, he says. “And it gets harder and harder to write songs because you’re competing against yourself. How did I write that 25 years ago? You have to keep reminding yourself that you don’t create a masterpiece just like that.” Eight years of writer’s block ended in 2011 when he started work on The Last Ship, a musical inspired by the shipbuilding community he grew up around. “Songwriters tend to be navel-gazing. What do I write about? Me. Writing for other characters freed me up. That relief was profound.”
The musical debuted on Broadway in 2014 to middling reviews and a lacklustre box office; Sting eventually stepped in to replace the lead Jimmy Nail. Next year he’s taking the role again in Amsterdam, Paris and New York. The show will play in opera houses, not theatres. “It’s not an opera but it has an operatic scale,” he explains. “Once you get into the opera world, all these theatres all over the world are desperate for new [material].” “We’re not quitters,” adds Styler.
Sting has called the piece “my real legacy” – which is surprising, given his back catalogue of hits. “It describes the community I came from,” he says. “And I think for many years I had a debt to that community that was unpaid. That culture made me who I am, gave me the engine to be ambitious, to escape. Having escaped, you need to pay a debt back. It’s a psychological need. The debt to my parents too. They had no opportunity to live this kind of life. They were trapped. So I want to acknowledge that to myself as much as anything; how lucky I’ve been. Going back to where you come from and saying thank you. I’ve survivor’s guilt.”
Family is a source of pleasure, especially being “Tutu” and “Nonno” to their eight grandchildren aged 10 months to 13 years. “Tutu” is what Styler called herself as a child when she was unable to pronounce her own name. “Nonno” is Italian for grandfather (“much better than granddad”, says Sting). What kind of grandparents are they? “Better than we were as parents. More tolerant,” he says.
“The kids who are parents are struggling with the things we’d struggle with,” says Styler. “We gloat,” says Sting. He’s particularly impressed by his wife’s grandmotherly skills: “Watching you entertain these children is staggering. She engages them in very difficult creative play. They make films. Do plays.” “We’re making an original film called The Book of Oracles,” Styler explains. “I’m Queen Andromeda in the play.”
Five of Sting’s six children – Joe (48) and Kate (43) from his first marriage to actress Frances Tomelty and Mickey (41), Jake (39), Eliot (34) with Styler – have gone into show business as musicians, actors or filmmakers. “I don’t think we encouraged them,” says Sting. “They chose it themselves. They’re all waiting for the next gig. It’s tough.” Only their youngest, Giacomo (29), bucked the trend and joined the Metropolitan Police last year. Sting is proud. “That’s a pretty toxic environment but you need good cops and he’s a good guy. All his life he’s said: ‘You’re all creatives. I want to do something useful.’” He laughs. “I take his point.”
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