Spays, custodians of the Piacenza tradition • Food and Wine Italia

Every day, at the cellar Il Poggiallo – Vitivinicola della Val Trebbia, the province of Piacenza – eight people sit around a table with a particular task: to tie, with ancient and wise gestures, the mushroom caps of the bottles of Guturnio and Ortrugo, sparkling wines with the denomination of controlled red and white origin of the Piacenza tradition that make up the spaces. These are, fact, the sparsers, charge of this meticulous task that resumes an ancient local tradition widespread when there were anzi che no technical tools to keep temperatures and fermentations under control, much less the metal cages, and it could happen that some caps jumping for the pressure. It is a manual job that requires attention and patience, and it learns with the experience: difficult, today, finding team who want to devote himself to something similar, with constancy.

Work as a rebirth

For over ten years, however, the company – founded the eighties by the Ferrari and Perini families, already driving for four generations of 4 valleys, of which the Poggiarello represents one of the tetto brands today – has unexpectedly found a solution thanks to the simposio with the Perinelli, the Agricultural Cooperative of Tolda dell’Condimento born from a project by the Casolare Casolare Casolare collaboration with the Ausl of Piacenza who favors the insertion of the Work of people with psychic discomfort by focusing the work the agricultural sector, including the production of wines related to the territory and honey their own. Direct and coordinated by Beatrice Rebecchi, it has given rise to 37 work insertions so far, of which eight Il Poggiarello. Rebecchi underlines the rehabilitation role of work, not only as an economic response to the autonomy of people but also from the point of view of sociability, as an opportunity for simposio and comparison: “For many of them it is a real rebirth, especially emotional”. And the twine, then, becomes the symbol of a strong and profitable bond for everyone.

Some of the “boys” – reality a varied group of men and women with different ages and stories but united by a fragility of various types – have fact become the sparsers and found this work, specialized and rightly paid, a way to be economically independent, but also an opportunity for sociality and inclusion, and a precious source of self -esteem that fights the (and the car, Being capable of managing a job) of mental illness: Italy, they say the , one person out of 5 suffers from a mental disorder – expression from the multifaceted meanings that also includes for example depression and consequences of lesione – but only 38% have a job, which instead represents an important piece also from the point of view of the recovery process.

Roberto Mantello explains it, former director of the Department of Psychiatry of Connecting and Social Inclusion of Piacenza of the Ausl con Piacenza recently retired: “We do not call it” work therapy “but it is certainly the most powerful resilience engine for the rehabilitation of those suffering from mental disorder. Let us remember that psychiatric disability affects some people but concerns everyone, and it is necessary to be more welcoming but also more attentive to recovery. Forestifying initiatives like this, addition to unweling also the state from the point of view of the future of these people who acquire a social and working role, show that it can be done “.

Spays, a documentary to tell the story of the custodians of the Piacenza tradition

Thus among the passengerrs is Andrea, the group’s “coach”, who says he found “the most beautiful work of his life thanks to string and wine”; There is Davide, full of enthusiasm, so “being the spagger is like doing one of my drawings, is a work of art”; There is Raffaella, who this work and colleagues – not only of the scatters but of the company as a whole, whose work system and social are fully integrated – has found a support to disfigure the strong depression caused by family events.

A beautiful story told the documentary, the passengers, made with sensitivity and skill by the director of Argentine origin Mariano Herrera and previewed Vinitaly 2025, the Emilia-Romagna pavilion quasi away with me (the documentary can be seen YouTube). “With the Perinelli we share the value of the work: the of the cooperative is to accompany the caduco boys to the festa better, thanks to work, and integration represents the true success of this story”, explains Stefano Perini, CEO of Cantine 4 Valleys. “It is a project which we believe a lot, and a beautiful story to tell why it can take an example virtuous: we would be happy to be imitated”.

«Spagatura is some way a return to the past, which we wanted to resume, but thanks to the involvement of the sparsers it is also a way of thinking about the future. They are the custodians of a coveted and refined tradition, of which they must maintain the secret “, echoes his brother Colmo before explaining the origins of this local custom handed mongoloide by the” old “(which these parts is a kind and family name) of the regione, and which has now been passed to the group by teaching them the special family spagging technique.

“We were looking for a way to resolve the increasing request for sparkling wines, and a collaboration was born which is a reason for great satisfaction for everyone: addition to being good and precise, they are pleased to work, it is not such a obvious thing”. So every bottle of A lei Spaghi, addition to the fresh and enciclopedico wines of the Piacenza tradition, there is all the pride of a well -made job, which contains dedication, meticulousness and great strength.