K-international 1 February 2015

Year I - N° 1 february 2015

Poste Italiane spa Sped. in A.P.-D.L. 353/2003 (convertito in L. 27/2/2004 n. 46) Art. 1 comma 1 - Cesenatico

Karpòs

INTERNATIONAL

INFORMING WITH INSIGHT FOR EVERYONE

TRAVELLING WITH THE RABARI

PAINTING WITH PRODUCE

THE HOUSE OF ANTINORI, THE ETHICS OF STYLE

FROM PLINY THE ELDER TO WINEBLOGS

CHAD, HEARTLAND OF THE SAHARA

EDITORIAL

By Renzo Angelini

INFORMING WITH INSIGHT FOR EVERYONE However one might view such issues as sustainable farming and the importance of environmental stewardship for the continuance of our existence on the planet, the fact of the matter is that knowledge of and information concerning the food we consume, its provenance and the impact these factors have on human health and on our planet are of an import whose immediacy has no parallel in any other historical period. This is why Karpòs is far more than simply a magazine to be read and dipped into at one’s leisure.

Indeed, if the medium is the message, that message is at once a multi-faceted ethical responsibility for Karpòs and of a distinctly different nature from other forms of informative communication.

Put another way, we are what we eat.

And we eat what we produce.

Producing food requires the use of energy resources, concerted efforts of scientific research and constant fine-tuning of farm management practices. When multiplied by billions of individuals, the resulting equation of cost-benefit factors is indeed an extremely complex exercise of analysis and problem-solving.

Public opinion deserves and needs to be kept informatively abreast of these issues, for they inevitably raise questions whose answers are of incontestable, fundamental importance. Karpòs sees its mission as transformative, one that turns the science and art applied to agriculture and human welfare in narratives whose story lines can be readily appreciated by anyone who wishes a more thoughtful, detailed and insightful look at topics that mainstream mass media too often gloss over in the usual clichés. It is to be hoped that our commitment will attract to these issues a readership that will grow along with us.

There is too an aesthetic facet to the ethos of Karpòs.

For it is as much a duty as a pleasure to offer our readers topics and stories whose accompanying images project a beauty that frames and conforms to the intent each carries. It is, in other words, a commitment to the pursuits of an increasingly discerning social milieu.

In seeking to make our content available to everyone, an indubitably gratifying view from our editorial offices is the 22.3% of our readers who live beyond Italy’s borders, with those in the US and UK, France, Germany, Spain, China, the Russian Federation and India heading the list.

So it is with great pleasure that Karpòs International will be available free of charge to our out-of-country readers as a tribute to their loyalty in the face of and despite the language barrier.

Renzo Angelini Publisher & Executive Editor

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Karpòs INTERNATIONAL N. 1 FEBRUARY 2015

Direttore della pubblicazione Renzo Angelini Editor in Chief Lamberto Cantoni Pending registration in the court of Forlì Publisher Karpòs S.r.l.

Via Zara 53 - 47042 Cesenatico (FC) CF 04008690408 - REA 325872 Marketing Editor Gabriele Vignati gabriele.vignati@karposconsulting.net Graphic Design Francesca Flavia Fontana francesca.fontana@karposconsulting.net Giulia Giordani giulia.giordani@karposconsulting.net Margherita Contini margherita.contini@karposconsulting.net Advertising pubblicita@karposmagazine.net Tel. +39 335 6355354 www.karposmagazine.net Press Office Centro Stampa Digitalprint Srl Via A. Novella, 15 47922 Viserba di Rimini (RN) Tel. 0541 - 742974 / 742497 e-mail: info@digitalprintrimini.com

05 EDITORIAL INFORMING WITH INSIGHT FOR EVERYONE Renzo Angelini

32 TRAVELLING WITH THE RABARI Pierpaolo Di Nardo

10 THE HOUSE OF ANTINORI, THE ETHICS OF STYLE Lamberto Cantoni

For the photos: from pag. 10 to pag. 30 © MARCHESI ANTINORI S.P.A. from pag. 86 to pag. 106 Maurizio Levi from pag. 76 to pag. 84 Daniele Tirelli

All other photos: © Renzo Angelini Cover: Marchese Piero Antinori © MARCHESI ANTINORI S.P.A.

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54 FROM PLINY THE ELDER TO WINEBLOGS Stefano Raimondi

86 CHAD, HEARTLAND OF THE SAHARA Maurizio Levi

76 PAINTING WITH PRODUCE Daniele Tirelli

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THE HOUSE OF ANTINORI, THE ETHICS OF STYLE

While today Antinori is a world-renown trademark of the finest wines, it is first and foremost a family, a house renowned for its centuriesbred traditions and èclat in the noblest sense of the word. It is this combination of brand and style that makes the House of Antinori an epigony of what the ‘Made-in-Italy’ label stands for and what discerning consumers seek. Marquis Piero Antinori spoke with us about how traditions and their cultural, material roots in rural ways of life interact to drive the innovation that is a hallmark of the Antinoris and so much a part of the way we live and think today.

Lamberto Cantoni

LAMBERTO CANTONI

COVER STORY

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seeding value. It’s hardly surprising to learn that they became members of the Vintners Guild by 1385. As the brand-watchers of today’s marketplace have it, the Antinoris are among the select few families in the world to have perpetuated a highly distinctive business profile since the dawn of proto-capitalism. For those who like their stats neat, only two other families in wine-making history come before the Antinoris: those of Chateau de Goulaine, vintners since the year 1000, and the descendants of Baron Ricasoli, a house whose beginnings are first recorded in 1141.

These are things that might cross your mind too, as they did mine, just before entering the stately elegance of the Cinquecento Palazzo Antinori, the head offices of the family’s business enterprises, for an appointment with

By any measure Renaissance Florence was one of the most intriguing periods of history, its import ranging far beyond Italy itself. The Antinoris were by then already famous as much for their wealth and honed business acumen as for their calculated, yet highly successful, risk-taking in turbulent times―what today might be called bold entrepreneurship in the pusrsuit of growth.

Their talent for realising the value of what their estates produced and of how best to turn this bounty into lucrative trade became something akin to a genetic marker passed on to generation after generation.

The historical record tells us that as early as 1178 profits from family business ventures in silk making and mercantile endeavours were being invested in farmland, a likely sign that the Antinoris were keenly aware of

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the book led me to ponder what can be called the ethical and cultural legacy of the family, a path that made me realise that perhaps our most distinctive trait is respect for honourable traditions that embrace a drive towards innovation compatible with the integrity of what we most value. Tradition deserves healthy respect but that doesn’t mean enshrining it in stone or accepting it as some sort of immutable law. Our task is to discern its constituent parts, what makes it tick so to speak. Respect in this sense stems from our efforts to keep the light of mind shining on these components. It means too that the spirit of innovation is a must if we are to find the energy needed to throw into relief all that is best in our past. Without the past words like beauty and quality are meaningless and without innovation our know-how is useless and we would soon be overwhelmed by time.

The wines we make are the very embodiment of this principle. Speaking professionally, let me add that what is most fascinating is the realisation that there is no set-in-stone rule telling you how to make wine of true quality once and for all. It’s as though you were charting a new course every year. Indeed, wine is a most peculiar product, and no two are identical. Each vintage has its own character, a personality unto itself. To use a term much the catchword in today’s trade, you might say that wine tends towards ‘complexity’. In other words, you must know how to manage conditions subjected to the pressure of changes large and small if you want to make wine to high standards of quality. It is an enthralling intellectual challenge for which research and practical experience must be brought to bear every step of the way...

Marquis Piero Antinori. Feeling a certain awe and admiration for the swath of history the family has traversed to the present we share with them added to the moment. In point of fact, despite the formal Q&A template simulated for the page, this would-be interveiwer dropped the professional mask to become more listener and occasional prompter in a wide-ranging, thoroughly enjoyable and instructive conversation.

Marchese Antinori, how does it feel knowing your shoulders bear the weight of 26 illustrious generations?

I was raised to think of it as less a privilege and more a responsibility to be borne without pretense and fuss, matter-of-factly if you wish. We Antinoris look upon our history with great pride but have never thought of that tradition as a kind of garden to be sheltered against the tide of the times that be. We all live in our own age and have to face the challenges that changing economic and social circumstances throw at us. I’ve tried to impart to my daughters Albiera, Alessia and Allegra, who help me to run the business, a philosophy of life, an ethic, whose core idea is that roots are, of course, important but so is the spirit of innovation if we want to preserve what we’ve achieved as a family... .... The tension between tradition and innovation is also a constant in your professional life. Wine is a product for which both those words are rather important.

How do you give each its proper due? …I recently published book written for an ideal reader interested in knowing the intimate ties that bind the story of my family and wine. It’s really a dialogue the Antinoris have always carried on with the past, with the issues of the times and with the foreshadowing the future casts upon all our lives. Writing

...The dialogue you mentioned between tradition and innovation also makes me think of the ‘convergent contrast’ between this stately Palazzo and the surprising sight your winery in the Chianti District

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Albiera, Allegra, Piero e Alessia

springs on you. I think it’s one of the world’s wonders. I first saw it from a distance and it looked as though the hillside into which it’s nestled was smiling at me.

The way the architect, Casamonti, has ensconced the building in the terrain of the area not only perfectly integrates it within the landscape but even adds an expressive appearance to the sinuous contours of the hillside that’s truly captivating. I may be exaggerating but I’ve never seen anything like it...and I’m an admirer of Renzo Piano. But your winery seems to me far more original in conception than the one he designed at Rocca di Frassinello in the Grosseto countryside...

always been a feature of the natural landscape embracing it. And we wanted to avoid the architectural overkill of visibility that’s so prominent in that profession today. A lot of thought went into the choice of materials and the concepts of beauty and multi-functionality. In short, we wanted a design whose manipulation of space and form would embody our family philosophy and transmit it to our customers. The creative approach of Archea Associates immediately seemed to be striding in step with our aims. Archea is a Florentine firm whose team of architects at the time were young and very much attuned to our way of thinking. We felt that working with a group having hands-on knowledge of the area and who were inclined towards innovation in our interpretation of the term would be most receptive to our ideas.

Hindsight tells me, if I may say so, that we

Our new winery was nearly 7 years in the making from drawing board to finished building. We wanted it to look as though it had

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made the right decision. The new winery embodies our overriding concern in every way.

We wanted nothing less than a structure that was an outward sign, or better, a particularly expressive feature of the landscape itself. In fact, it has the elegant, sweeping contours we hoped for and is of very low environmental impact while being a huge energy saver... ...Your book very clearly spells out your ‘family philosophy’ and what you define as the ethics of the Antinoris’ lifestyle. Indeed, you begin each of the 5 component sections with a word that, like your own name, is headed by the letter ‘P’... ...Yes, well, at first I found the whole idea rather off-putting, but the insistence of my daughters brought me round to thinking otherwise. Many people, including friends and

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cation of real-life experiences that underscore its ethical values as they appear in the episodes recounted and as they are expressed in our business philosophy. The words I felt most congruent with the family spirit are Pazienza, Previdenza, Precisione, Profitto, Passione (‘Patience, Foresight, Scrupulousness, Profit, Enthusiasm’). While they might appear like some sort of acrostic, these words describe better than others what has animated the lives and endeavours of the Antinoris, past and present. I am personally averse to derring-do glory seeking and the rashness it implies. To act with prudence, forethought and uprightness is, to my mind at least, the surest way to achieve your goal, no matter how far you have to travel. You also need a dash of enthusiasm, of drive. It’s the key that unlocks the door to research, innovation and quality.

business acquaintances, said they would like to learn something more about a family with a trail 26 generations long which had almost single-mindedly marshalled its energies in the pursuit of success in the wine industry. There’s obviously more to it, of course, and thereby hangs the tale. Even though wine may be what we are best known for, the family gallery also includes a wealth of portraits whose reallife counterparts pursued successful careers even in the arts and in war.

Well, when you look more closely at the 26 generations of our house, you also begin to see the outlines of certain ways of life emerging, something you could call the elements of style the Antinoris set for themselves. My real problem was how to tell the tale. This is where the ‘P’ words come in. They provide a way to turn the concept of style into an evo-

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the most important wines of the 1970s. Luckily, it also had good company. Like ours, there were other wineries ready to innovate in the name of quality and drop the emphasis on quantity. So, while most wineries were taking a different tack, a few of us, even if unconsciously at the time, moved to the forefront at the production end.

It all began when what seemed like an irreversible market decline confronted the industry in the later 1960s. The bottom appeared to be fast approaching when the government abolished share-cropping, a centuries-old practice that enabled estate owners to have their land cultivated by tenant farmers and their families for a share of the harvests. This forced the estates to become businesses and hire hands to work the fields. Yet knowing how to manage a business profitably is not something everyone can learn from one day to the next.

In effect, it took no more than a few years before much cropland, vineyards and other farm operations included, withered from

These 5 words also give you a good idea of what an Antinori wine is meant to be. By quality here I mean elegance, harmony. We’ve already mentioned how variable production factors are. If you want to make quality wine, you have to take every year as a new beginning. It’s exacting but important. Enthusiasm drives determination, and by profit is meant the measure of success or lack of it at the end of the day when all is said and done… …I’ve often heard people speak of a revolutionary Antinori wine. Some say Tignanello even changed the way wine is perceived in Italy-not to mention how export markets consider Italian wine. From what I’ve heard, it was only after the advent of Tignanello that Italian wines achieved the quality needed to excite the growth of solid demand in the international marketplace... ....I would venture that Tignanello was one of

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actual fact, it was at this time that the responsibility for managing the business fell to me.

One of my first decisions at the helm was to steer a new course in the direction of higher quality. This was the sea change that brought about Tignanello, a wine that is still a source of pride to me.

The background against which these socioeconomic changes were playing out, however, would be incomplete without mention of a factor-let’s call it anthropological-that began to loom large in my eyes. The country itself was also on the cusp of a radical shift in its social make-up as a solid as growing middle class was coming to the fore. It was obvious to me that this would soon affect consumption patterns. It stood to reason that wine could go from mealtime staple to a product defining life-style. So I decided it was the right time to

neglect. The wine industry suffered from an additional complication. Until then domestic demand accounted for nearly everything our producers could bottle. And, since the average consumer perceived wine as a dietary staple, our market was awash in low-cost wine of mediocre quality. The agrarian reform thus had a knock-on effect for wineries since the sudden rise in overhead outlays could not be offset by charging higher prices at retail... ..How did all this affect the Antinori winery? ...Fortunately my father had the foresight to see the wall well before the writing appeared, although the market downturn was still cause of mounting concern to some extent and certainly did not augur well for the future. In

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invest heavily in new vineyards, in upgrading the quality of our wines and in developing new ones...

My father Niccolò had hired him because of his expertise and enthusiasm and Giacomo always held him in high regard.

...I don’t want to seem impolite but spoton socio-economic analysis is one thing whereas improving product quality, not to mention inventing new wines, is something else altogether...

Our friendship and mutual esteem quickly developed and led me to see how much the traditional ways of doing things could benefit by applying scientific insights to viticulture practices and wine-making processes.

We agreed that we needed to develop a new wine that would do justice to our magnificent vineyards. But this was something that had never been tried before. We also received a helping hand from Émile Peynaud, who at the time was one of the world’s leading wine scholars and researchers. We drew up a new wine-making manual that laid down what should not be done. For instance, unlike in the past, when making red wine, do not use large quantities of white grapes, do not age the wine in big chestnut barrels for as long as 4/5 years, never use the same barrels all the time, and so forth...Practically speaking, we were going against the grain and all the tradi-

...Quite true. In effect, good fortune was with me. I met and worked with several people of exceptional talent and expertise, and together we laid the groundwork for new directions in the cultural milieu of wine-making. Along the way I noted that our universities were woefully lacking in extension services with their applied research. In travelling about the world and seeing at first hand modern, competitive wineries, I realised we had much catching up ahead of us as far as specialist know-how was concerned. When I took over operations, luck would have it that we already had the best oenologist in the business, Giacomo Tachis.

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friends supported my perception. Then too the scientific insight of persons I admired was not open to question. Not to mention the fact that the acclaim of critics, Luigi Veronelli at the top of the list, soon put paid to any polemics. Florence took to the new Chianti right off. Consumers seemed to have been waiting for a wine like Tignanello. We had triggered a chain reaction that would take wine from its plebeian rank of table staple to the distinctive status of an affordable luxury. By the 1980s the expression ‘Super Tuscan’ became worldwide shorthand for the excellence of wines produced under our ideas...

tional rules for making Chianti Classico, But we were certain that producing a new Chianti was the only way to rise above the market crisis. The ‘rule’ change also dictated that the ‘basic’ tenant of our approach required that the grapes come only from the finest Chianti vineyards and be of tested high quality. The new philosophy resulted in the production of 20 thousand bottles of the 1970 vintage of Tignanello, a Chianti Classico made from Sangiovese berries blended with a mere smattering of white grapes and aged for a year in small barrels... ...It’s not hard to imagine that other producers were somewhat sceptical, even a bit contrarian, vis-à-vis your new ideas...

...Is this the moment when the House of Antinori became a true brand, when it added a marketing arm to its expertise in wine-making?...

...All innovations seem at first to be hatched from unrealistic eggs. The traditionalist camp of my colleagues thought of us as ‘young Turks’, pushy and a bit over the top. I must confess that though these were busy years of hard work, we were also carefree and had our share of fun. I never really bothered about what other producers thought. I was convinced my tack was the right one and the expertise of my

....I like to think that the House of Antinori has always been what today is referred to as a brand, meaning a product with a strong market profile, a singular history and recognisable values. We began exporting wines mainly to England by the mid-1700s, and were among the first to deliver them to the Port of New

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grafting, of insightful planning needed to support the steady growth of our company and its markets, then I think we have learnt over the years how management of a business can be fine-tuned to cope handily with expansion and the issues that arise with it...

York for the US market in the late 1800s. Our wines have also received prestigious awards in many countries around the world. A few remarks about marketing are in order here.

It’s a term that commonly refers not only to a firm’s in-house division dedicated to dominating markets but also implies acceleration of business procedures and manipulation of public opinion...Yet speed counts for nearly nil in viticulture. A new planting can take as long as 10 years to reach peak production. If you want to make quality wine, you have to think of it as a distinctive product, something rare, sometimes even unique. As we said earlier, every year has a pedigree and leaves its imprint on the wine. I cannot say whether what we do is branding. But I can say what we’ve done: acquired top-quality vineyards in Tuscany and abroad, husbanded and endowed with beauty the land on which we work, restore and refurbish historical buildings to promote wine tourism in an environmentally friendly way, and work every day to improve the quality of what we produce. However, if by marketing we mean imitation of abstract models, I can say it has never interested us. If, on the other hand, we mean the trellising, or

...How do you see the current state of Italy’s wine industry and the future of produce ‘Made in Italy’? ...Nothing is to be gained by pretending there are no problems. The weak domestic demand in Italy is surely having an effect on everyone, though perhaps we feel it to different extent with respect to others. By the same token, the world is becoming wealthier and more consumers are seeking the quality that comes with what is truly genuine. Let’s not forget that Italy is the world’s first or second power in the wine industry. My work often takes me abroad and I can say that genuine products bearing the Made in Italy label are in great demand by consumers. My educated guess is that we hold a winning hand if we play our cards skilfully.

Acting the lone gambler, the roulette player, say, is to be avoided. It’s become a cliché but

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The wine-producing member states should be more vigilant and insist that decisions be deliberated with all due consideration when they regard a product that is an integral part of the Mediterranean diet and of our European heritage from time immemorial.

our businesses must learn to play as a team.

They also must be more in step with those who set the ‘rules of the game’. If anything, my experience in the international marketplace tells me that putting your business house in order is a far harder row to hoe in Italy than it is for our competitors elsewhere. But it can be accomplished. While the uncertainty of our own legislation and legal system is indeed a very heavy burden, the drift towards excessive red tape and dirigisme in the European Union is worrisome in its own right. Indeed, I often feel that decision-makers fail to take account of the real issues facing our industry.

Lamberto Cantoni Direttore Responsabile

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Testo estratto dal libro: “Excerpted from the author’s book India del Nord: 330 milioni di dei e un popolo solo (‘North India: 330 million gods and only one people’), Polaris Editore Pierpaolo Di Nardo

Pierpaolo Di Nardo

TRAVELLING WITH THE RABARI

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India has exerted its sway over me so often now that New Delhi has become a home away from home and, like many times before, upon arrival no particular destination beckoned me. As usual, after threading my way through the city’s thronging cacophony of traffic, I first stopped to purchase a new white kurta pyjama and, unusually, a worn secondhand book by the title Wedding celebrations in Gujarat. Then a few steps farther on it was down the stairs to the underground Palika Bazar to savour the India whose crowds throb and swirl as if bitten by a tarantula, and then north to old Delhi for a stroll through the Chandni Chowk market.

Later the pages of my newly acquired old book proved an inspiration and provided a destination. I was soon off to Jodhpur, in the

heart of Rajasthan, a city’s with a spice market whose myriad hints of smells, aromas, coloured lights, hazy memories and forever blurry desert treks are the food of the imagination. The next step was to head west by jeep, which my guide Arjun was to make a very short leg of indeed. Driving at full tilt as if jousting with the sun before it set glowing red over the dunes near the Pakistan border, he soon brought us to the town of Barmer, which had seemed a shimmering mirage just minutes before. The night too was short, like a dream too beautiful to last, and the next day our jeep was flying like an arrow southwards across the Thar desert of Rajasthan, a little known area in one of India’s best known states.

Though more low road than high, National

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Highway 15 runs straight from Barmer into the heart of the desert, where villages are few and a market town here and there lets you top up‌with fruit. As one kilometre faded into another under the sun’s day-long arc, we finally reached the town of Tharad in Gujarat. After an eight-hour drive under the scorching desert sun, we were too tired to care, or even think about where we were and a small hotel catering to lorry drivers and pilgrims offered immediate shelter for the night.

Though only several days now separated me from the bookshop in Delhi’s Connaught Place, the chaos of the city was already a faint echo.

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their statues of the gods before proceeding. I sat again farther down where the water cools the air to read my book, standing every now and then to stretch, and before long realised dusk was already gathering. Once gain the usual lorry-driver hotel was near to hand. After dousing ourselves with a couple of buckets of water to remove the desert dust, we sat down to a meal of my favourite daal and aloo paratha with hot chai to restore the body. Entering my notes afterwards nearly filled my first Moleskine log. It was time to turn in.

No longer in the desert but not yet in the countryside, Unjha was a mere 30 km away and we reached the outskirts in a flash. A sign reading ‘Welcome to Unjha. City of Mataji and Vasant Rai’ greeted us. I knew who Mataji, Kuldevi, the Mother goddess, is but

On the road again early in the morning we headed due east into the sun accompanied by the Thar’s dusty wind towards my first real destination: Unjha, where I hoped to learn about marriage among the Kadwas. The nuptial rituals of this community-brides who are 5 years old marry grooms of 7 once every 11 years-are amongst the oldest such in India.

Dating to the IX century though abolished by law when India became independent, the custom is still alive in this district of northern Gujarat.

We made one further stop before reaching our goal. Patan is a place of rare and unexpected beauty for it is the site of the Rani-kiVav Baoli stepwell, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2014. Here and there descending the steps, I’d sit and then stand to watch my shadow play amongst the tiers of pillars with

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hadn’t a clue about Vasant Rai, though my ignorance was soon to be remedied. Once in town, our jeep was surrounded by a group of shouting children. Whilst Arjun was trying to restore some quiet, I instinctively reached for and turned on my tape recorder and began to sing. The kids followed my lead, repeating the words in loud voices. I then turned it off, rewound and then turned it on again so they could listen to themselves. They started laughing, we made new friends. We then took a morning stroll round the town, which is chock-a-block with vendors’ stalls selling all sorts of merchandise.

The kids and the music were another sign of sorts too. For shortly thereafter I learned that Vasant Rai had played the sarod and was

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bears the name of Rai. He later told me that information about Kadwa Kanbis marriage rituals is hard to come by as the younger generations know little and the older ones are knowingly reticent. A few days later he took me just beyond Unjah to the village of Chhabaliya for a Vasant family get-together. It was quite a do-an evening-long feast flowing with music, songs and dances and fed by samoza and chai steaming with spices. Upon awaking at dawn, I found my bhunga surrounded by scores upon scores of sheep and goats and was hard-pressed getting the door open. Outside Vasant was standing by a fire with other men dressed in white from turban to toe who had not been at the feast the night before. They were Rabaris, nomadic

one of India’s greatest musicians of the 20th century. A pupil of the great Allaudin Khan, as was Ravi Shankar, he had even jammed with George Harrison and John Coltrane, among others, and performed in all of the world’s most prestigious music venues. Here in Unjha he’s venerated almost like a god and statues of him are everywhere. Raga and Tala, melody and rhythm: the musical keys that open a thousand doors in Unjha. When I found the school that bears his name, I tried to spend as much time there as possible since music is a fundamental part of Indian marriage ceremonies.

After three days, I managed to make the acquaintance of Vasant, a teacher at the school who, as coincidence would have it, also

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pastoralists from the Rann of Kuthch who were cousins of cousins of nephews of cousins yet further removed of Vasant. Kinship is the bedrock of India. Vasant told me they were returning to their village a few dozen kilometres from Bhuj, nearly 300 kilometres to the west. They had left home in April when the onset of summer’s violent heat soon bakes the Rann of Kuthch into a lifeless desert of salt-flats and then yields to the incessant monsoon rains that turn it into flooded marshland. Now in November they were heading back as the monsoon retreated, leaving a land of lush green behind.

ravan of 32 people that included some 300 goats, over 100 sheep, 5 dogs, 3 wagons, 30 camels, 22 hens, 7 cocks and 30 cows. A small tribe on the march that lumbers on kilometre after kilometre trading their wares at villages and welcoming contact with the sedentary and travellers alike in a six-month trek far from home-all for the sake and survival of their livestock and their livelihood.

Deep dark eyes, large black moustache, silver earrings, of statuesque physique and dressed in white waistcoat and turban, Sarood is the caravan’s leader. His is an imposing presence that commanding respect and attention whenever he imparts orders to the families, whether in the few clipped words he utters or even wordlessly by nuanced facial expression

Three families with few women, even fewer children and many men folk comprised a ca-

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42 Pierpaolo Di Nardo

that turns his gaze into a pointing finger.

Forty-four years old with centuries of Rabari blood in his veins, he was followed nearly everywhere by a woman whose face was veiled and thin frame wrapped in a black shawl embroidered with little mirrors and silvery beads. I imagined-for imagine was all one could do-that she was beautiful. They were going home…and the penny dropped…Vasant would not hear of it, repeatedly saying it was impossible, far too dangerous for me, but I kept insisting: hadn‘t I been travelling in India for twelve years and by now was inured to everything…or nearly so? Vasant frowned. Can you sleep on a dust-covered blanket under the stars? Drink water from a waysi-

de well? Eat boiled succulent plants? Drink raw milk without becoming ill? Pass entire days with sheep urine assailing your nostrils?

But I wouldn’t budge. Vasant finally stepped away and spoke with Sarood, who listened and turned his silent, impassive gaze on me.

He shook his head several times and though the gestures seemed to say no I knew he was nodding yes. Vasant approached me with the verdict: yes, but only on condition that at the first sign of any weakness or danger, I would be left at the nearest village since the caravan could not afford to be halted by a westerner’s ‘whims’.

So I would be off the next day with the Rabari. Later I said goodbye to Vasant, promising

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that I’d come back to see him at the school in Unjha, and gave him my silk scarf as a token of our friendship. I would continue my pursuit of the Kadwa Kunbis marriage rites on the road with the Rabari.

CARAVAN, DAY 1. Four in the morning.

The herds and the village near our camp began to stir at first light. We were off! I jumped on a wagon pulled by a camel, sat next to a young boy and let myself sway to the lumbering gait of caravan.

from one day to the next on the trail. I tried to put impressions, feelings, glances and gestures in some kind of order, jotting them down in my (second) Moleskine. I’d just begun a journey as unexpected as it was exciting, looking for one thing but now caught up in another. India’s like that: you may not find what you’re looking for but then serendipity intrudes and you find what you never expected to find. Time in this land of gods is never time wasted because India always has something to up its sleeve to discover, to recount. Always.

Apart from Sarood’s wife, there were several women in the caravan who at camp that night approached me, curiosity having got the better of them, asking questions I couldn’t understand, laughing and covering their faces as they did so. They gave me a pen and I wrote my name, even though they couldn’t read. But I learnt their names-Ratti, Bhegun, Jaivi, Ina. The men, who were smoking and drinking chai, started laughing, shaking their heads. When they started singing songs of a gentle melody later, I turned on my tape recorder and turned off my brain. A full moon high in the sky turned near light of day on the night.

CRAVAN, DAY 3. As we moved along during the day I tried to talk with Chandra using the few words of Hindi I know. He was twelve, had been to school for three years and now looked after the livestock with his father; there were two older and three younger siblings.

Chandra was a font of information: his great-grandparents were from Rajasthan like all Rabaris and had migrated to the Rann a very long time ago. In a dress sparkling with embroidered mirrors and beads, a woman with arms covered in silver bracelets and legs tinkling with anklets called us to chai. The road droned on, two villages were gone by, and the day was drawing down. Sleep came by counting goats grazing, recalling farmers’ pointing to the fields that could be crossed

It makes no sense to think about how much road a caravan will travel in a day since time during the Dang (trek) is measured not in kilometres but by the rising and setting of the sun. It’s simply a matter of plodding on, step after step sets the pace…Language proved to be an unbridgeable gap since I couldn’t understand a word anyone said. I tried to follow Sarood’s gestures and parse his facial expressions, even the songs the boy Chandra, my wagon mate, kept singing while looking at me. Maybe I could devise a sign language.

Hours passed. I got off the cart and walked for a while trying to find a way to break through Sarood’s immutable silence. Nothing doing, not even a glance my way. We stopped for water and after some hesitation a boy offered me a bottle pointing his finger that it was ‘OK’. I drank half, got back in the wagon and let the pages of my book lull me to sleep. The sun was setting when I awoke and camp was being pitched. The three wagons were drawn up in a horseshoe, small fires lighted next to them; the women were cooking, the men putting everything in order for the night, the camels seen to and the livestock herded into a make-shift pen put together with stones, bushes and thorny brambles. I hunkered down in my blanket to the thought that time here flies by faster than space…

CARAVAN, DAY 2. The wake-up call was a dog howling off-key in the morning chill. It struck my that there would be no difference

44 Pierpaolo Di Nardo

45 Pierpaolo Di Nardo

together. Gesticulating along with a few simple words, I tell him about my trip, that I too am a kind of nomad in my world, and why I wanted to join his caravan. While he most likely didn’t understand all I had said, in the end our conversation, with Sarood nodding and saying ‘yes’, was a real milestone. I smiled and told myself he understood.

CARAVAN, DAY 5. I woke up in the same position I fell asleep in. Everyone about me was busy with their chores and the caravan was almost ready to depart. Would they have left me there? Encampments are strung everywhere along the road, women in colourful saris at work and children at play.

As our caravan goes by, the men call out to those in the camps: Where have you come from? How long away from home now? Got enough water? Where’s the nearest well? Of course, I had to imagine these questions but couldn’t do the same for the replies.

On we trod, the length of the day’s road

and the haggling over the price of embroidered cloth.

CARAVAN, DAY 4. Steaming hot chai was my morning wake-up shock. I spent the entire day chasing after goats. Now I know what the expression ‘you old goat’ means.

You can’t teach them anything. They go wherever they please, without rhyme or reason, and you always have to be ready to herd them in, calling, shouting, even hitting them here and there with your staff. The sun baked my arms, adding injury to insult. That evening, four full days into the journey, Sarood deigned to speak to me. “Vy u ir?”. Seeing my face a blank, he repeated, “Vy u ir?”. Then, after repeating his words, I got it: “why you here”. I sat bolt upright in my blanket-Sarood speaks English!...of a kind at least. As elementary as it might be, it was good enough for me to understand. A whole new world opened before me…The silent gulf between us was bridged…We could finally communicate, talk

46 Pierpaolo Di Nardo

being measured as usual by the clockwork of the sun. The approaching dusk brought the same rituals-some women filling metal jugs with water, tonight at the lake we camped by, others carrying bundles of twigs and brushwood on their heads for the evening fires. Later, like every night, each family stowed their camel saddles, provisions and wooden utensils in their tents-two or three per family-to keep them from turning to dust by the nocturnally foraging termites. The women and children sleep in the tents, four or five to a mat under hand-made duvets, and the men under the stars as they take turns guarding the animals. I stood watch that night and silently thanked Sarood for making me feel like one of the group, though I had the distinct impression he had told the others to keep an eye on me. I tried to identify the constellations in India’s luminous night sky but ended up as usual tracing my own lines between the dots of stars.

CARAVAN, DAY 6. First light in the middle of nowhere slants as it spreads. The mist mixed with the smouldering embers of the previous night’s fires enveloped everything.

Morning is the most exciting moment of a caravan’s day as you never know what may cross your path, it’s all still up in the air. I go down to the lake to douse myself with its cold water to wake up: Aamir, Sunil and Shipa were smiling at me-there’s no better way to greet the day than seeing an Indian’s gleaming white smile. While I could guess that the caravan may have covered more than 100 kilometres so far, no one really knew. As I noted before, space on the road in India is reckoned in hours and days rather than in mileage.

The days seemed to flicker by under the wagons’ churning wheels and the camels constant chewing of time with those long, long tongues that never quite fit in their mouths.

The Dang is a laborious undertaking and the Rabari are not a talkative lot on the road.

Their attention continually pivots from the animals to the road, and the leader must be able to ‘read’ the terrain for signs telling him which fields are fallow and which sown so he can guide the caravan accordingly. When Sarood imparts his orders to the other men by pointing or in a short burst of shouts, they are quick off the mark and anyone who isn’t knows that his back will soon be thumped

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tive potato peelers, bolts of cloth piled high on bicycles that looked like inflated hot-air balloons…

Sarood alighted from the wagon and uncovered our wares: scores and scores of cut cloth embroidered and decorated with beads and mirrors. It didn’t take long for word to spread and several dozen village women to crowd round the goods, bantering, bartering, haggling, trading in kind, exchanging-anything goes that makes a sale although Sarood preferred rupees in the hand. Even if dressed like an Indian and sporting a nomad’s unkempt beard, the pale face shining under my turban and pale limbs soon made me an attraction as well, although stares and laughter were the coin. Sarood was as proud as a peacock at being able to show off his western friend amongst his colourful fabrics, not to mention that my presence also helped to advertise his wares. As dusk began to gather we returned to the caravan. Business had been brisk at Lolada and most of our merchandise was sold.

by hands as big as shovels. A soiled blanket stowed between the wagon’s wheels is my reward at the end of day, after a meal of roti with vegetable soup, butter and spices and a cup of chai to fend off the chill, which give way in turn to the silence round the camp fire broken only by a monotone, sing-song chant that lulls you to sleep.

CARAVAN, DAY 7. Today we stopped at the market in Lolada, a village on the approach to the Little Rann of Kuthch. The caravan with the women and children halted outside the village and Sarood, Vishnoy, Jaivi, Phagu and Latchi took a wagon with me on board into town. Lolada’s market was a colourful riot of humanity: stalls of fruit and vegetables, vendors of farm implements, men loading wagons hauled by camels, lorry horns blaring away, vendors of sugar-cane juice armed with all-purpose grinders, dentists displaying bridges and false teeth, boars eating everything in sight, Indians squatting as Indians do, hucksters flogging unlikely primi-

48 Pierpaolo Di Nardo

of the Rann of Kuthch. Ahead lay the great expanse of a desert whose insidious pitfalls could spell disaster and bring to nought all the efforts that had sustained the life of the caravan during the long months of the Dang.

While the salt marshes left by the monsoons had dried up nearly everywhere, there were unforeseeable stretches of dangerously muddy terrain to navigate. The caravan would have to proceed more cautiously from here on to cross the Little Rann of Kuthch safely: while two days might be enough, it all depended on the weather and road conditions, which no one could foresee.

In his rural Hinglish Sarood explained the situation to me: under no circumstances could he put the life of the people of his village, of his caravan, his livestock and the fruits of the Dang even in the shadow of harm’s way. He

The women were seated round the stone ‘oven’ rolling, re-rolling, slapping down and flattening the unleavened dough of millet roti. Several goats grazing near the fire almost got their beards burned. After the meal, the women began dancing accompanied by the jingling of their silver jewellery and soon the men got up and joined them. We were all dancing to thank the gods for the profitable day bestowed on the tribe. It didn’t take much really to make a festive occasion, but take it we did.

CARAVAN, DAY 8. Chew and spit. Rhythmically. I learnt to brush my teeth with twigs of Neem, a good half hour of chewing and spitting. A sacred tree revered for its indisputable medicinal properties, Neem is used in India also as a household disinfectant.

The caravan meanwhile had come to the edge

50 Pierpaolo Di Nardo

chai. I walked wrapped in my turquoise blanket among the goats and watched the sun as it began to rise above the flat line of the distant horizon. Radanphur is not far from here, and I’d be able to hitch a ride on the first tractor, lorry, wagon or camel that passed.

The caravan was ready to leave. I say goodby to the men as big as statues and Namastè with a bow to the women. Chandra hugged me before he getting into our wagon, and I gave him my book so he could practice his English. Sarood said “Jaivi widdin febuari” (Jaivi will marry in February) and that his house is the house of his friends.

You meet up by chance, travel a stretch of road together, share meals of roti and daal, learning all the while how to say good-bye without fuss when the time comes. Parting of the ways is a sorrow that can set you free and make you stronger. The glances exchanged during chilly nights next to a fire that offer a glimmer of human warmth will always be there to remember. The precinct of memory

said that if anything were to happen to me, the authorities would act swiftly, their justice exemplary, and his family and the entire community would be covered with shame.

He had pondered his decision but it was for the good of everyone. It was now up to me to act in due conscience and leave the caravan.

My heart was broken. But nothing would change his mind. I’d learned that when Sarood spoke, something he seldom did, it was not to illustrate a problem but to dictate its solution. Apart from being entirely dependent on the caravan, I had agreed to the condition attendant upon my joining the Dang and could not now go back on my word. The night sky had become overcast, not a star to keep me company or the sadness of imminent leave-taking at bay.

CARAVAN, DAY 9. I woke earlier than usual to savour my few remaining hours in the company of the Rabari. The morning chill had a sharper than usual edge. Jaivi, one of Sarood’s daughters, gave me a cup of hot

51 Pierpaolo Di Nardo

Himalayas: from the snow-capped peaks of Ladakh in the north to the Cape Comorin in the south, including stops among the ancient communities of Orissa and the new urban tribes of Dharavi and Mumbai. He has harvested rice with the women in the paddies of Tamil Nadu, met gurus and fakirs, of whom there are many, on the ghats of the Ganges at Rishikesh, sold sacks of black pepper at the International Kochi Pepper Exchange, and travelled with the pastoral Rabari of Gujarat, drinking their water, eating their food beneath a wagon and sleeping on a dusty blanket under the stars…

holds the meaning that made it all worthwhile.

As the caravan finally got under way, shouts of joy blended with loud good-byes-parting should always be more sweet than sorrow. A smile puts everything aright and the day was still young. I turned away and looked down the road. Though no one was in sight, I knew I’d be in Radhanpur by sunset. I realised too that marriage rites-Jaivi’s-would bring me back.

PIERPAOLO DI NARDO Traveller, writer, actor, India manager at Tour Operator Earth Cultura e Natura, and author of the Guides to India series and the books India del Nord: trecentotrenta milioni di dei e un popolo solo (‘North India: threehundred-thirty million gods and only one people’) and India del Sud: nella terra degli dei (‘South India: land of the gods’), all published by Polaris Editore. Since 1996 he has travelled no fewer than times to India and the

Pierpaolo Di Nardo India & Himalaya Product Manager

52 Pierpaolo Di Nardo

VALLEPICCIOLA è una realtà nel Chianti in via di rapida evoluzione, e sarà composta da: • Moderna cantina in costruzione (completamento finale per la primavera del 2016). Dotata dell’impiantistica e flusso della produzione piu’ moderna sul mercato, garantisce un isolamento termico ideale (essendo incassata nella collina), ed ampi spazi.

• Sessanta ettari di vigna piantata da 3/5 anni, con altri potenziali 40 che si dovrebbero aggiungere entro breve.

• piu vitigni,capeggiati dal classico Sangiovese che hanno dimostrato un perfetta adattabilità al nostro habitat • Consulenza tecnica del nostro amico agronomo – enologo Riccardo Cotarella.

La sfida è di offrire al mercato, a partire dal 2016/2017, sette diversi tipi di vino di alta qualità.

Dai ricordi delle molte estati passate in infanzia nelle vigne dei nonni paterni, è nata l’idea di creare dal niente un’azienda vinicola.

Dalle decadi da imprenditore è nata la determinazione ad attuarla, con la disciplina ed i fondamentali di modernità che i tempi domandano.

Confidiamo che le risorse, l’attenzione, la determinazione, la professionalità che stiamo tutti dedicando a questo progetto portino ai risultati che ci siamo fissati.

Speriamo veramente che il nostro progetto abbia il Vostro apprezzamento, e che raggiunga l’obiettivo di suscitare il Vostro interesse sull’evoluzione dinamica dell’Azienda Vinicola VALLEPICCIOLA. Grazie, Bruno Bolfo Società Agricola VALLEPICCIOLA S.R.L. CASTELNUOVO BERARDENGA (SI) - Italia Tel. +39.0577.357539 Fax +39.0577.357525 www.vallepicciola.com vallepicciola@vallepicciola.com

Stefano Raimondi

STEFANO RAIMONDI

FROM PLINY THE ELDER TO WINEBLOGS

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Aerial view of the Langhe, Piedmont

district’s vineyards confer on the hillsides as to the wines produced there. Italy now has 75 WHS sites, making it one of the wealthiest countries for stewardship of its scenic beauties and landscapes. In fact, the number of agricultural areas on the WHS waiting list gets longer by the day, a clear sign that these districts embody assets their local communities see as real added value in their efforts to achieve sustainable growth and maintain the roots of their identity.

STEFANO RAIMONDI

Pliny the Elder, Apicius and Petronius Arbiter of Satyricon fame, each in his time, praised the virtues and excellence of the vines and wines in several of Italy’s districts, justly famous even then. They proved to be farsighted indeed, for such a prestigious organisation of today as UNESCO has recently added the Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato to its list of World Heritage Sites, a truly cultural tribute as much to the beauty and harmony the

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Globalisation has wrought manifold effects on trends of consumption and production. China, for example, has become a beacon among new vinegrowing and wine-producing countries. Worldwide consumption of wine bears all the signs of a strange alchemy. The alembic contains such diverse ingredients at once social, cultural, economic and environmental of nature, with a dash of

wellness, but what issues from it has paradoxically fuelled expansion in emerging and contraction in traditional producers.

The watershed for Italian wine is to be found in the divide of the 1990s. The once bright tandem “New World-International Cultivar� began to lose its sheen for global consumers. The downhill

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Agricultural landscape around Monteriggioni (Siena)

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Viticulture in Chianti

Italian wine exports value in 1996 September 2014

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Castle of Brolio in Chianti, property of the Ricasoli since 1141

course accelerated in the first decade of 2000s as the intrinsic, repetitive character of a few internationally grown grape varieties drained the ‘wine experience’ from the bottles of what was and is still a limited consumer public.

a flexible nature that fits the fragmented identities and multi-faceted lifestyles of a post-industrial age in pursuit of products with a ‘bespoke’ label. It has a direct product-to-consumer link, a relationship at once confidential, intimate, almost one-to-one.

Into this breech left by retreating demand stepped a new Italian twist-wines produced bearing TerroirNative Cultivar pedigree. It is a supply idea with

The acceleration provided by the web and the means it offers to expand personal relations did the rest.

The social networks turned it viral. The opportunity

Company Fontafredda, in Piedmont

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to discover new varieties, wines and areas has proven irresistible, giving rise to hundreds of sites, blogs, forums, new ways of sharing information. Italian wine soon found itself catapulted to the centre of a global stage.

Today wine is among the most thriving items of Italy’s agriculture, perhaps even of its entire trade output. Its performance is nothing less than stellar:

sold in more than 160 countries, its export receipts nearly tripling from €1.7 to €5 billion between 1996 and 2013, direct and spin-off jobs on steady rise, and, riding this wave of success, a burgeoning winetourism that has become part and parcel of many local economies.

It is a success, indeed, but one achieved through hard, unassuming work. Italy’s wine trade has

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Italian wine exports value by type January-September 2010-2014

PDO red wine receipts (<2L) by area of origin, January-September 2014

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Italian wine export receipts by product category, January-September 2014

PDO red wine receipts (<2L) by area of origin, January-September 2014

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Viticulture in the Langhe

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patiently managed to weave a production cloth whose commercial arms extend to the global marketplace. Of the 44 million hectolitres produced on average between 2010-2013, exports now account for well over 20 million, a tribute befitting a web of trade relations sewn together month by month in markets far and wide that also has a touch of Italian commercial élan evident since the days of Marco Polo.

The export wine trade for the period 2010/2014 over January-September shows several noteworthy signs. The most evident is sales growth: bottled wine rose from €2.193 to 2.711 billion against a slight slip in volume from 9.1 to 9.0 million hectolitres. The real indicator here is the average per-litre price, which connotes quality: it rose from €2.42 to €3.10.

The cornerstones of this success are the PDO

PDO white wine receipts (<2L) by area of origin, January-September 2014 (€ml)

PDO white wine receipts (<2L) by area of origin, January-September 2014 (€ml) DOP Lazio Mil € 9.4 3%

DOP Tuscany Mil € 14.1 4%

DOP Other Regions Mil € 156.9 45%

DOP Trent-S T-Friuli VG Mil € 97.6 28%

DOP Veneto Mil € 70.7 20%

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San Michele, in Trentino

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wines, especially the reds: they hold a 26.7% share of export receipts and 60% of production is exported. The US alone accounts for 30% of sales.

While the predominant reds are Tuscan, the market of PDO whites is dominated by what’s called the Other Regions, including Sicily, Apulia, Campania, Sardinia, and so on. This group holds a 45% share by volume on sales of €157 million as of September 2014. The two PDOs hold a combined 40% share of export sales.

‘SPARKLING’ ITALIAN STARS The divide of the 1990s also registered a sea change from sweet-dessert towards dry sparkling whites, thereby ending the monopoly of Asti Spumante as category leader.

At the same time, however, a newcomer called Prosecco-fruity yet dry, palate-pleasing, affordablefrom the vineyards near Treviso in Veneto was on its way up and out into the international marketplace.

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Export value for Italian wine areas from January to September 2014

UNIONE EUROPEA 52%

NORD AMERICA 28%

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Italian wine export receipts by product category, January-September 2014

catchment areas-Venice, Franciacorta and the South Tyrol Alps-have been considerable. Indeed, they have also done much to render in bolder strokes than before the image of an Italy where among the finest wines and warm tourist hospitality make those who venture there feel more than welcome and leave them with the impression of a unique, unforgettable experience. With the compliments of the trade, naturally.

It did not take long to explode upon the wine scene, an incipient success that later gained further traction by a reform of the appellation regulations and subsequent expansion of the vineyard district.

By the turn of the new millennium, Prosecco had arrived in style, topping the charts with double-digit growth rates. Its 2010-2013 ‘gate’ receipts rose from €170 to €395 million riding on a volume increase that doubled from 498 thousand to 1.040 million hectolitres. .Figures for the first three quarters of 2014 show a rise of 28.7% in sales and of 37.1% by volume. Prosecco continues to woo and win both mature and new consumers who keep driving demand to double-digit rates in all but a few markets, and ‘seldom is heard a discouraging word’.

The current market leader for Prosecco exports is the UK, where receipts rose from €64 to €97 million between January-September 2013/2014, a leap that overtook the €84 million rung up in the US.

OUTLOOK A big challenge surely for Italy’s wine industry will be to strengthen while extending the reach of districts less familiar but with solid potentiality. Many of these are in the South, an area which accounts for 35% of domestic production. In effect, the 2013 export figures show a wide, area-based share gap: the North with 75%, the Centre with 19.6% and the South with 5.4%. While this profile underscores a certain weakness in the trade, and although much needs to be done, there are encouraging signs thanks to the continuing efforts of a solid cohort of entrepreneurs. If the target is to assure sustainable growth of the country’s vine and wine industry, a lot will depend on how well global demand is handled and area imbalances are addressed. Procrastination is not on the agenda.

This strong international demand for bubbly has also proved a boon to the sparkling spumantis of Franciacorta and South Tyrol, the high-end lines of the market offering a greater range to choose from to both the more venturesome and discerning of consumers. The spill-over effects for these nearly adjacent districts on their tourist-cum-cultural

Italian wine export receipts by product category, January-September 2014

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72 Guado al Melo

Aerial view of Alba in Piedmont

adv Studio Cattaneo / ph Mauro Magagna

Massimo, paolo, armando, Tiziano - Mezzane, verona â&#x20AC;&#x201D; ore 12:10 AziendA AgricolA TenuTA SAnTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;AnTonio / info@tenutasantantonio.it / www.tenutasantantonio.it

The 2014 export year basically saw a consolidation of positions and a broadening of target markets.

Accordingly, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s now time to take a strategic pause and look those geographic areas that appear weak in performance vis-Ă -vis their export potentiality and try to redress the situation to spur growth.

Russia and the slowdown in the economies of Brazil and China. The weak demand projected for the European Union markets is expected to generate price swings at the port of origin.

Market observers and experts expect that growth in 2015 will trace an asymmetric with the biggest arc formed by the US, Canada and the UK whose consumer spending is already on the rebound. By contrast, the export outlook for the BRIC group is on hold given the rising geopolitical tensions for

Stefano Raimondi

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DANIELE TIRELLI

Newport Ave Market

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PAINTING WITH PRODUCE The Italian tourist spellbound by the ‘Snow White syndrome” stands transfixed before markets like Au Bon Marché in Paris, Harrod’s in London and La Boqueria in Barcellona, examples all of ‘painting with produce’, a novel display technique blending form and function.

Daniele Tirelli

Newport Avenue Market’s display adds a new twist that arrays items by their irregular geometric shapes so as to enable mist spraying and air circulation to maintain the produce shelf-life.

to those of plant-based foods.

Nor could it have been otherwise as a glance at the country’s enormous advances in agriculture and food industry, as well as at its enduring ethnic melting pot, clearly evinces.

Take, for instance, the traditional importance its Hispanic communities ascribe to fresh fruit and vegetables and the influence this has exerted over consumers of other ethnic groups. The most dynamic and innovative supermarket chains too have long been promoting both domestic and international foods. Perhaps the most spectacular demonstration of emerging trends here goes under the name of ‘painting with produce’ or ‘produce display’.

Note too that many of today’s independent grocery chains, as well as the many cooperatives in the business, started out long ago as small produce vendors. Even the very name

Received ideas clothed in clichés offer more comfort than independent thought. The widespread idea that the United States, hated yet loved at the same time, is a country that simply does not know how to appreciate fruit and vegetables as mealtime staples thus serves the self-deceiving view that Italians are, among others in Europe, the experts when it comes to buying and selling fresh produce. In point of fact, however, a closer look at North America’s vast continental marketplace would lead to a very different conclusion. Let me try to convince you that North America is the laboratory that incubates innovative marketing and merchandising techniques. As a well-rounded account of its history shows, the dietary model of the US population has undergone rapid, sometimes dramatic sea changes in the last 150 years that have propelled emphasis from meat-based regimens

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The combination of colours is carefully arranged to enhance the chromatic contrasts of fruit and vegetables

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tasting with bright, colour-enhancing visual cues, sometimes even to the accompaniment of a sound track imitating rain showers when mist is sprayed on the produce to keep the items moist. This obviously entails selecting blemish-free produce whose perfect appearance of beauty makes them seem almost fake. It clearly induces, say, in an Italian tourist, what you might call the ‘Snow White syndrome’-a spell binding the eye’s perfect image of the objects to the mind’s doubt about their genuine nature.

When it comes to the objective quality of an item of produce, which received notions peg Americans as being junkies of pumped-up, flavourless fruit, say, it would be a good idea to look before leaping by first tasting a plum, Sun World’s Midnight Beauty seedless grapes, a Wisconsin apple or any item in the vast assortment of fruit at Whole Foods, Central

of farmers’ markets bespeaks of their origins.

Curiously, US retailers themselves state that their orderly, eye-catching polychrome displays are designed to reproduce the visual appeal of European markets. This is surely something of a modest overstatement since few of the latter-Au Bon Marché in Paris, Harrod’s in London and La Boqueria in Barcellona being the most prominent-really offer such captivating ‘arrays’. Indeed, the most attention-grabbing exhibits, which entail notable expenditure of time and skill, are rather to be seen in India and South American countries.

That said, there’s no denying that many US retail chains have developed sophisticated, aesthetic-enhancing approaches to retailing.

The underlying idea is to cast form and function in customer-enticing, multi-sensory layers that combine the experience of product

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like Wal Mart and Costco. In point of fact, fresh, perishable foods, including produce, make up 45-70% of supermarket turnover since their higher profit margins offset the lower of packaged items. Whence the need to convey instantly and intuitively the value offered by a given retailer, including the commitment to wholesolme, gratifying and varied foods. One of the most outstanding harbingers of this policy is Nugget Market, a chain the Stille family has been operating at locations in the Sacramento area of California for the last 80 years. The company has fine-tuned to perfection at outlets like Eldorado Hills, Vacaville and, most spectacularly, at its Elk Grove store a vertical display of vegetables. The asymmetrical arrangements are designed to create striking chromatic contrasts and proper mist application and air circulation. Surprisingly, the arrangement ta-

Market or Stew Leonard’s, chains that cater to the middle class in the states where they operate. We could even extend the debate to include the cliché that biodiversity is close to becoming extinct in America. A visit to Bristol Farms, The Fresh Market or Sprouts would readily convince anyone that heirloom produce is very much alive and well.

Items like Brandywine tomatoes, Crab apples or Purple Peruvian potatoes are easy to find for aficionados of ‘neo-romantic’ varieties with a secular pedigree.

Let’s go back now to our form-and-function painting with produce. Take bananas arrayed by grade of colouring to mark their ripeness from green to yellow, or peppers by degree of spicy hotness. The essential idea is to convey the freshness and unassailable quality of an item as a distinctive way of differentiating a given retailer from the big discount chains

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Newport Avenue Marketâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s asymmetric niche display, contrary to appearances, is quick and easy to set up

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Trays bearing precision-arrayed apples provide a truly eye-catching sight as visitors enter the Garden of Eden outlet on 14th Street in New York

kes less time to compose than the textbook stacking used in other chains. Similar ideas have been independently worked out at other chains, good examples being Newport Market in Oregon, Andronico’s in California, Dorothy Lane in Ohio, Garden of Eden in New York and, albeit in pared-down version, even PXs of the Marine Corps.

The term ‘painting with produce’ comes from the art of composing fruit and vegetable arrangements for banquets and trade shows. It is also connected to select assortments earmarked like gift baskets and ‘edible arrangements’ for special occasions and celebrations and party trays for on-the-go or working lunches. The skill needed to plan arrangements of forms and colours combining the orange of carrots, yellow, green and red of peppers and tomatoes, the purple of aubergine, and so on, is the basis of a profession increasingly in demand by retailers and offered by small, specialist firms. The services these latter provide also include dedicated lighting, which in turn is rapidly going high-tech, and creative interior design and furnishings for outlets.

The various ‘schools of food neo-romanticism’ pursue a palette of ‘rustic, down-on-thefarm’ nuances that harken to the traditions of a country that essentially viewed itself as an agricultural paradise in its first centuries of life. In hewing to this view, the many

independent chains operating in local areas like Roche Bros in Massachusetts, Kowalski’s in Minnesota and Bush’s in Michigan put a great deal of advertising emphasis on a policy that accords stock preference to produce of area provenance. They all spotlight items in a supply range of less than 100 miles, a more pragmatic, concrete conception of what in certain European countries is indiscriminately touted as “zero km”. These local chains also work in co-marketing schemes with farmers that distinctly underscore the name of the farm and its crop profile-a very effective way of calling the best of what farmers produce to the attention of consumers at large.

There are any number of lessons about selling produce to be learned here by the big retail chains in Italy and other European countries. The first, however, is the invitation to take the page that lays out the basic concept developed in the US: the best way to defend tradition is to exploit to the full what modern marketing has to offer.

Daniele Tirelli IULM Milano

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CHAD, HEARTLAND OF THE SAHARA

Least known and most isolated of the countries in the great African desert, Chad lies at the centre of the Sahara. It is a great divide of two cultures: the South of towns and merchants hawking their wares aloud in multi-coloured robes, and the North of the Sahara whose nomads and animals congregate round desert wells. It is also a land of geological wonders, featuring high plateaux like the Ennedi, with its bizarre yet imposing Tassili-like ochre-coloured sandstone formations whose steep-sided cliffs plunge into canyons, ravines and cathedrals of stone harbouring sites of stupendous petroglyphs in their nooks and crannies. The Lakes of Ounianga in the North, surrounded by lush palm groves and walls of mesas, loom suddenly and unexpectedly into view amongst the orange-tinted dunes whose sheer slopes slide precipitously towards their waters. In effect and in deed, the journey across vast stretches of apparently endless dunes has something startling about it for you have the feeling of being the first human to pass that way.

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Our destination is Chad’s Ennedi, a high sandstone plateau rising to an average elevation of 1,000 metres asl that formed 500-300 million years ago and covers an area of some 60,000 sq km, or about the size of Switzerland. Our itinerary will first take us from the capital of N’Djamena 500 kilometres east across part of the Sahel belt dotted here and there with baobab trees, villages and markets to Abechè, the regional capital of Ouaddai near the Sudan border, and thence northwards into the great Sahara itself.

As the transitional Sahel zone gradually fades away to the north, the landscape becomes more and more of a desert and the first groups of humans and livestock watering at

The Gueltas d’Archei in the Ennedi plateau are an important watering spot and meeting ground for Tebu nomads and their camels

the occasional wells come into view. Then, all at once, the sands of the great desert seem to part and looming before us are jagged sandstone outcroppings weathered and sculpted by the wind over the millennia into towers standing, solitary and in groups, like medieval castles above valleys laced with canyons and wadis called gueltas-formations that are typical of the Tassili plateaux. Renowned for its scenic beauty, the most famous by far is the Guelta d’Archei, whose spectacular sandstone walls cradle permanent pockets, oases, of water.

Situated in the massif of the Ennedi, the oases of the Guelta d’Archei provide life-supporting water for the Tebu nomads and the

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camels of their caravans that can be found here amid the blazing silence of the desert nearly every day. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;pre-historicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; scene that has remained unchanged for centuries.

A 100 km farther north is Fada, a small oasis of 5,000 inhabitants that is typical of the Sahara. The houses and marketplace are built of clay around an old colonial fort that was occupied by Libyan army troops from 1980 to 1987 during the invasion of northern Chad.

When France despatched forces to end the occupation, the retreating Libyan soldiers left a billion-dollar trail in the dunes behind them: burnt-out hulks of armoured personnel carriers, tanks and missile launchers, artillery ordinance, combat helmets, contorted skeletons of transport vehicles, and thousands upon thousands of machine-gun rounds that can still be seen in the sand. This blood-

stained conflict also left behind some 70,000 anti-personnel mines, mostly along the trails connecting Fada to the oases of Ounianga.

Though they have now been swept and secured, the minefields had kept foreigners out of this remote corner of the Sahara for decades.

The next leg takes us from Fada across the Murdi Depression, a completely uninhabited area of huge chains of dunes. Our route, the old caravan trail that connected the salt-flats in the Ounianga and Teguedei areas with the villages in southern Chad, is a slog even for an off-road 4x4 because it has to be dug out of frequent sand traps. Here, in one of the most isolated regions of the Sahara, enveloped in the enormous vastness of space and unworldly silence are to be found vestiges of Palaeolithic and Neolithic settlements strewn with shards of pots and other prehistoric ma-

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terial remains. These sites, which today are utterly inhospitable, were inhabited by prehistoric humans as the many natural shelters adorned with elegantly stylised rock paintings, or petroglyphs, of animals and scenes of a vanished culture executed more than 5,000 years ago attest to.

Saharan Chad today is home to a number of ethnic groups-the Tebou, or “the mountain dwellers” in the Kanouri language, to the north, the Kanembou, Daza, Kanouri, Kereda, Boulala, Fulbe, Hausa, Hadjerai, Kotoko, Baguirmi and Arabs in the centre, and the Moundang, and Moussei to the south. While they speak different languages and profess three main faiths, they share a rich and complex history whose roots go deep into the most ancient past.

That reminds me. You have to be an expert behind the wheel in Chad’s desert, like Tebou drivers are. They navigate not by map but by instinct and experience, by ‘reading the sands’ to pick their way over the dunes

and through boulders, rocks and the unexpected. You must be able to read the colours and contours of the sands on the fly, though a few steps of reconnoitring might at times be needed, to tell you where the safest paths lie and to avoid pitfalls in the sand and sudden down-slopes. You also need the proper vehicle-the Toyota Land Cruiser is the ideal 4x4 for Saharan trekking-and it must be properly equipped- sand guards, tow cables, jerry cans of extra fuel, compressed-air pump for inflating tyres and at least 2 spares, aluminium boxes for food and tool storage, a GPS, and a Thuraya or similar satellite phone for emergencies. For example, while nearly the entire journey sticks to well-trodden if sandy trails, there are long off-road stretches across desert dunes and flats that require letting air out of the tyres so the vehicle ‘floats’ over the sand to make driving easier.

A road trip through northern Chad is a Saharan expedition in every sense of the term, and all that can be foreseen and planned for must

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be, including the unexpected. Take refuelling. There are no service stations here, but local merchants in some oases keep a small stock of petrol in drums, but you never know if they have enough when you need it. The problem can be remedied by bartering with local truckers who, for a decidedly higher price than at the pump, will usually sell twenty litres or so that you then have to syphon from the lorry tanks by sucking through a tube. You sleep in igloo-like tents and hope the wind keeps its head down, something it seldom does in late spring and summer when temperatures higher than 50°C can make travelling inadvisable, to say the least. Each

I laghi Ounianga sono una vera “curiosità geologica” in pieno Sahara, circondati da dune e falesie rocciose si trovano una quindicina di bacini d’acqua dei quali alcuni veramente estesi

night is spent in a different place but always under the same dome of stars shining like beacons in unpolluted sky. Yet the real trip is the trek, solitary and intrepid, across the vast African desert, an infinite expanse of sand covering a lost sea.

Traces of that lost sea are still evident. Every oasis in the vast desert is a new discovery, and some cover relatively large areas. Kalait, Fada, Ounianga Kebir and Faya are the most important and nearly 600 km separate one from another as if they were islands in a sea that is now sand. Faya, one of the planet’s biggest oases, is the seat of government of the northern capital, nearly a 1,000 km from

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Nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Djamena. Surprisingly, in the heat of the Sahara, its economic base is agricultural and the wheat, dates and figs grown in the area are irrigated from an underground basin.

Straddling the border of Chad and Cameroon is Lake Chad, a perennial source of fresh water, even though you could walk across it during the severe drought of 1984. Depending on weather patterns, its actual expanse ranges from 10,000-17,000 km² with a maximum depth of 7 metres, a mere 10% of the area it covered thousands of years ago.

The places you visit on a journey like this, and the impressions they leave with you, are more than worth the coin of a few inconveniences along the way. The Ennedi plateau, the most interesting area, is a land of nomads. Co-

Toukou Well in the Ennedi highlands is where nomads and their animals go to drink every day. The water has to be drawn by hand from the well, which is over 10 metres deep

mings and goings in all directions are marked by footprints in the sand all heading towards wells, the gathering places of nomads who come to water their livestock every day. The Tebu, or Toubou-the men (Bou) who dwell in the mountains (Tou)-speak only local dialects and are always a tad suspicious of outsiders.

Toukou Well in the Ennedi highlands is a watering hole for thousands of animals every day. The nomad herders draw the water from a depth of more than 10 metres Men of slight build, whispy arms and legs, wavy black hair, aquiline noses, bright of eye with a penetrating gaze that is always alert, they have a physique that is fine-tuned to the Saharan environment and have the stamina

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Toukou Well

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circlestudio.it

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Markets

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to go far longer than you would think without food and water under harsh conditions. Only one of them knows where to find the stupendous prehistoric petroglyphs, which are marked on no map, and has to climb up and around rock walls to lead us there.

Using techniques developed thousands of years ago, these ancient Saharan artists executed their works of art in a surprisingly sophisticated style that we still have the chance to admire today thanks to the preservation wrought by the climate of the moisturestarved desert.

As we move farther north across the solitary, soundless dunes, each of us is alone with his or her most intimate thoughts. The dunes are a shifting

Anecdote

Living in an environment as hostile as the Sahara means adapting mind and body to its rigours and leading a life pared to near bare essentials. The Tebu are famous amongst the peoples of North Africa for their resistance to physical hardship. They say that a Tebu can travel for three days on a single date: the first day he eats the skin, the second the flesh and on the third he sucks the stone.

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Come arrivare

blanket of silence covering stories of those who never returned from forays in search of a route through them or an oasis. In unexpected suddenness the orange dunes yield to the sight of the Ounianga Lakes. They are surrounded by palm groves and steep cliffs extending southwards from a craggy limestone mesa. The contrast of colours-the white of the cliffs turning to pink and purple against the yellow sand, the green palms and the blue of the water-are an arresting spectacle. One of the most scenically beautiful of places in all the Sahara, this unique area became a UNESCO Word Heritage site in 2012. From here, which is not far from the Libyan border, our return to the capital will take 3-4 days. Our route takes us across the gently undulating dunes past Erg Djourab, where the remains of a hominid who lived 6-7-million years ago were discovered, the first such find in Central

Voli: Air France, Ethiopian Airlines o Turkish Airlines Viaggio dall’Italia: con “I Viaggi di Maurizio Levi” (Tel 02-34.93.45.28, info@viaggilevi.com, http://www.viaggilevi.com) partenze di gruppo il 23 Dicembre 2014 e 26 Febbraio 2015, durata 17 giorni.

Si viaggia con Toyota Land Cruiser con 3 passeggeri + autista per auto e accompagnatore-guida italiano di grande esperienza. Da Euro 3.570 (base 10 pax).

Vaccinazioni obbligatorie: febbre gialla, consigliata la profilassi anti-malarica.

Documenti: passaporto e il visto, da richiedere presso l’Ambasciata del Chad a Parigi (necessari almeno 20 giorni).

Quando andare: da Novembre a Marzo.

Km percorsi in fuoristrada: circa 3.000

Africa. This is an area that is nearly empty of human settlement save the scattered tens of pastoral Arab nomads. Like a self-contained microcosm, each clan has its own wells and well-defined pastures. Our route from here follows the ancient bed of the Bahr El Ghazal river, a tributary of Lake Chad in prehistoric times, and takes us back to the capital.

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