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| The grappa
distillers came down to the plains from the Val Chiavenna, above
Lake Como, every winter; they spread out as far as Liguria.
They were men who lived in the mountains with their animals
during the summer. In the winter they brought their animals
into the stables and then had to find other work, often inventing
it for themselves. These distillers learnt their trade by distilling
the must of the grapes from nearby Valtellina. My father, Serafino,
along with five others of his nine brothers was one of these
distillers. He moved to these parts and opened his distillery
in 1925. Unfortunately he died soon after in 1933, and the distillery
passed on to my mother. She also died quite young in a bombing
raid in 1945. I was only 16 years old and had to take control
of the situation. Up until that time I had only come into contact
with the superficial and pleasant aspects of the work without
knowing how tiring it could be. I started work in the distillery
thinking “it’s only a temporary arrangement” |
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Every morning
there is a queue In front of the firmly closed door to the small office
at the distillery.
It is here that the grappa is bottled and corked by hand and where
the labels painted by Levi are pasted onto the bottles with a glue
brush. The queue is silent and has a air of meditation; they are waiting
to speak to the “angelic grappa distiller” |
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