Off the Beaten Path in Rural Italy : Trip planners who specialize in the European nation can customize itineraries for any traveler.

We knelt on the soft, clumpy earth that serves as carpeting for the vines, and we eyed the threatening gray edging across the Tuscan sky. The vines had done their part: They had delivered up the pendulous bunches of purple grapes that were near to bursting with their juices, perfectly ripe, ready to be transformed into the famed Brunello, one of the glorious regional wines of Italy.

But the weather had not been as cooperative. For the previous two weeks it had rained off and on, delaying the Italian grape harvest in many areas, including at Fattoria La Crociona, a small vineyard and guest facility outside the medieval town of Montalcino. Juice-diluting water is not something one wants clinging to one’s grapes, so it was pick quick, before the next rain, or maybe lose a year’s work.

So we picked. With sharp pruning shears we cut with speed and passion, watching the sky, along with Signora Fiorella Vannoni, our hostess, and her husband, Paolo Nannetti. We cut along with their grown children, Roberto and Barbara, with Fiorella’s mother and father and Paolo’s father. We cut and raced the weather, caring as if they were our grapes. Yet, we were only tourists, visiting in one of the guest apartments in the ancient brick and tile-roofed buildings on the vineyard.

How did we end up beside Fiorella Vannoni at La Crociona? Easy. Our personal trip planner found her for us. I had said, “Linda, I don’t just want a cathedral-and-art-gallery trip to Tuscany. It’s harvest time, and we want to experience it. Find us a vineyard.”

Linda Rivero found us a vineyard--and a warm, witty and welcoming family, with whom we cut and ate and talked and laughed late into the afternoons. After the field work--and even when we didn’t work--the family invited us to join them in hearty Tuscan lunches at the long table in the root cellar, which had been transformed into a whitewashed dining room with a fire burning in the hearth.

It was before one of those lunches, as Fiorella and I picked the fresh herbs in the garden for the pasta, that I learned the ultimate secret of perfect tomato sauce. (And which I will not divulge, so forget it.) You see, Fiorella, besides running the vineyard, the guest facilities--formally called Azienda Agrarie Crocedimezzo e La Crociona--and her family, also teaches Tuscan cooking in Siena.

Yet, it’s not likely I ever could have found her without Rivero, owner of La Pergola Tours in Valley Cottage, N.Y. She was the brains behind our entire adventure in Tuscany. She sent us a questionnaire about our desires, talked with us by phone--many, many times--and then took over. An expert on Italy, she did all the itinerary planning and routings. She hunted out destinations to suit our interests, such as finding us our vineyard. She suggested charming inns and elegant palazzi. She worked with a travel agent to make car and plane reservations, and personally booked our hotels. With ease Rivero filled our order for hill towns, vineyards and interesting, little-known hotels.

“Linda,” I had said, “I have an abundance of good taste and a shortage of cash. Find me a $300-a-night hotel for a hundred dollars.” She booked us into the Hotel Santa Caterina in Siena, charming, cheerful and cheap--at least for Italy. OK, so it was about $120 a night, not $100, but who can quibble when you’re passing time in the luscious garden or getting great food tips from Ingrid, the concierge, or climbing the spiral staircase to the lovely sleeping loft with the solid king-size bed and great reading lamps.

For their services, trip planners such as Rivero charge fees ranging from about $200 for just itinerary planning to about $375 for all services and reservations for 10 days to three weeks--which, from my point of view, we got back in savings by following our planner’s hotel recommendations, not to mention the value of her wisdom on what to see and where to eat. And the incalculable value of our stay with Signora Vannoni.

Up until this two-week trip last fall, I had always planned my vacations myself using guidebooks, picking the brains of friends and studying maps for long hours. But this chance for a trip to Tuscany came up on short notice. I had neither the time nor inclination to plan it. A group tour was out of the question. My companion and I wanted flexibility to change our plans if we felt like it (which we did); we wanted none of the luggage-at-the-door-by-8; we wanted the vineyard experience and charming, small palazzi to retire to. We wanted a Linda.

Personal trip planners, who advertise in discreet little ads in the back of travel magazines, are a growing alternative to travel agents, tours and do-it-yourselfing. They often serve more sophisticated tourists, those who, as Rivero said, “have already done the Colosseum. They want a little more personal service.”

Trip planner Marjorie Shaw of New Haven, Conn., described personal services as covering four areas: itinerary planning, accommodations planning, transportation planning and eating. Some planners, like Rivero, are associated with travel agencies and can book cars and planes. Some book hotels, some charge an extra fee for the service and some do no booking.

We left for Italy with Rivero’s beautifully bound personal guide, which we took to calling “Linda’s Book.” It contained just about everything we’d need: itinerary, day trips, maps of each destination, be it a city or a drive, restaurant tips and even historical information. It was like having a guidebook with all the irrelevant material ripped out. It was nice to know that the framework of most of our adventures was in one little booklet.

“You’re finding something with style and charm that’s been seen by someone,” said trip planner Betsy Hall of Dedham, Mass. “I go over three, four times a year.” She has stayed at the inns and hotels and has eaten in the restaurants she recommends. Rivero, who lived for a while in Siena, leads small groups to Italy regularly, gleaning information for her individual clients as she goes.

In the village of Escheto, outside the walled town of Lucca, Rivero found us Hotel Villa San Michele, an obscure, 17th-Century mansion that glistened with silver and polished antique furniture in the salon and was once the home of a high local religious official. It was our big splurge at about $250--the cost of a good commercial hotel. But here Guiseppe Santarelli, the owner and manager, fed us from his personal stock of prosciutto, cured by his friend. He took guests to pick chanterelles on the back lawn, and he insisted on not only recommending restaurants but dictating what we should order.

They turned out to be wonderful restaurants. In Lucca it was Buca di Sant Antonio, which served sliced steak speckled with sage, rosemary, mint and garlic, and dribbled with olive oil. Rivero also found us a spa in Bagni di Lucca with a European mineral-water steam bath and massage and no other tourists.

Rivero’s clients ask for all sorts of specialties: garden tours, hiking tours, local market tours, designer shopping tours, cooking tours, art tours. One client, Rivero recalled, wanted a Caravaggio tour. “I found every Caravaggio from Florence to Bari,” she said.

For us she laid out several hill-town drives. One of the loveliest was along the Chiantigiana, a series of roads through part of the Chianti region that is a patchwork of vineyards and tiny villages and turns in the road calling out to picnickers.

From Lucca we took Rivero’s suggested drive up into the Apuan Alps, with a stop at Bagni di Lucca for our $18 mineral-water steam bath and $18 back massage--only after a checkup from the bath’s doctor, which consisted of the following: Doctor: “Any health problems?” Us: “No.” Doctor: “OK.”

In Florence, with which we were familiar, we retired Linda’s Book and fell into an open-air market near the synagogue that we never saw in any guidebooks, took buses, discovered working-class restaurants with our friend from Perugia and, of course, schlepped through the Uffizi gallery and stood in awe under Michelangelo’s David at the Galleria dell’Accademia.

Finally, we settled into our grape-picking mode, with three nights in a charming apartment Fiorella had just remodeled for paying guests at about $80 a night. When we were not grape-picking or eating or talking with the family, we visited the towns and monasteries nearby.

We cried when we left La Crociona. And we brought with us four bottles of Fiorella’s very best Bru nello--with which to toast our trip planner.

GUIDEBOOK

The Best-Laid Plans

Independent travelers who’d like a custom-tailored itinerary in Italy can contact the following trip planners:

Linda Rivero, La Pergola Tours, 331 Sierra Vista Lane, Valley Cottage, N.Y. 10989, telephone (914) 358-6035. Complete services and reservations, $375.

Marjorie Shaw’s Insider’s Italy, 7 Edgehill Road, New Haven, Conn. 06511, tel. (203) 865-8605. Complete services for two for a two-week trip, $350; $395 for four. No car rentals or plane reservations.

Betsy Hall, A Tuscan Experience, 8 Rodman Place, Dedham, Mass. 02026, tel. (617) 326-8076. Complete itineraries and bookings, also bookings at farms, villas and country inns, $350. Car and air bookings available; hotel bookings, 10% of room cost.