Antonella
Raimondo
Video
A few words about us and
Martilde
We, Antonella Tacci and Raimondo Lombardi, came to Rovescala in 1991, leaving our milanese job in IT, to choose a completely different setting, that would allow us more contact with nature, and to keep animals friends.
It was a very decisive step, who led us to became vine-growers and wine-makers.
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First of all, it’s the two of us who take care of Martilde, and we were not born here or just happened to find ourselves in the area. We chose it, as a place to stay and a way of life.
Perhaps, as it often happens, without being entirely conscious of what we were actually doing. That came with time. But with all our determination and resources: financial, physical and mental.
We are not from here and we spent long enough in different spots in Italy or elsewhere, not to feel any nostalgia for our birthplace. For Martilde we left an entirely different job in Milan, to discover the new world of vines and wines.
Our initial lack of experience made us the ideal catch for a rather long queue of bad advisers but, learning the hard way at our own expenses, we tried to be quick about it. True, the side effects of some unhappy choices have been tough to overcome, but a radical change of life is always bound to require some suffering.
Now, enough time has passed to make us feel as we have been here forever. Rovescala become our ‘home’, Martilde is strictly joined to our own life and the surrounding landscape is the one we are familiar with, on which we open our eyes each morning, the one we recognize from afar, and are happy to come back to when away too long.
The best job in the world
Why is this job different from all others?
Perhaps, one of the first things to consider is that the time to stop doing what you were doing, clear your mind, go home and think about the week end… well, it never comes. Here, life and work are the same, tightly entwined.
When this awareness begun to surface, it almost made us smile. Martilde breaths, walks on ours and our animal’s legs, looks through all of our eyes. It is our own reality. Martilde is us, we could say.
You mustn’t have an exceedingly romantic idea of a winemaker job. We are mostly alone, with only each other for company, with the countryside and nature; you have to be inclined to this sort of life. You rediscover the dependence on the hours of light; summer days never ending, wintertime when it is dark at 4 p.m., and evening is just a step away.
You are always looking up at the sky and weather forecasts; and not in order to better plan an excursion to the seaside. Weather affects us heavily, it changes our activities, the order and kind of tasks to do, and is one of the main factors of a good vintage.
When you make a different choice, change something, bring about some innovations, the result is visible only years afterwards and very difficult to compare with past ones. Very often work is physically tiring, or strangely unrewarding. You chase a new idea, a quality leap, and this is not recognized or appreciated as it ought to. Market does not always give the right response; you are disappointed and embittered. Investment are many, and heavy, gains slow and often uncertain. Frequently, if you were not so tired, you would not be able to sleep, at night. And some year, alas, hail comes to spoil a whole year of work and expectations.
But you get the light, the open air all around, the countryside surrounding you, the understanding of seasons passing, the first shivers of cold, fog with its magic stillness, the warm embrace of summer, storms with their wonderful colours. Nature hidden life, birds different flights, a hare running, a dear leaping, wild creatures prints, so many different lives. Each day is gifted with a new wonder.
There is independence and the pleasure and responsibility of your own choices, of your personal little sacrifices, of being able to manage your time. The delightful monotony of chores in the cellar carefully carried on, the smell and colours of wines, creativity and the wish to produce something with a life of its own, but able to tell our tale.
It is nice to know that there is so much of our ideas, stubbornness and dreams, in that glass which maybe keeps you company in joyful occasions.
