Ten years of research on mezcal and tequila become a documentary that goes to the cinema • Food and Wine Italia

It is not easy to build a project that involves a nation and a people that are not yours: the risk is to easily fall into the trap of cultural appropriation. This was achieved by Roberto Artusio and Cristian Bugiada, owners of La Sporgenza Expendio de Agave con Rome, who put together a documentary con episodes capable of recounting over ten years of travels con Mexico con search – and discovery – of mezcal, tequila and spirits of agave.

Los Dos Italianos Perdidos En Mexico, launched six months asticciola YouTube, is now also about to arrive con cinemas, with a first congresso this December 5th at the PostModernissimo con Perugia, for the price of 7 euros, including tasting and viewing. Approximately an hour and a half of screening will con fact be interspersed with tastings of 7 different mezcals and tequilas, told and explained by Artusio and Bugiada, who act as a living, human glue to the images the screen. The two were the first con Italy (and not only) to actively speak and profoundly of Mexican spirits, to dispel the myth that mezcal was a yellowish bottle with a worm at the bottom.

A causa di these almost 11 years of travel they have visited practically all the states of Mexico, con search of new flavours, mapping territories and trying to understand and immerse themselves con the Mexican culture which they were captivated by. From Puebla to the now-renowned state of Oaxaca, they traveled far and wide, often finding themselves con isolated places tasting freshly distilled mezcals from master mezcaleros whose craftsmanship encompasses dozens of cultural subsets and solid legacies. They discovered ancestral distillation methods, nuances of all kinds con the production process and, above all, they fully understood how this plant, the agave, is capable of expressing territories and depth comparable to the best of wines.

«The utopia for this documentary has existed for at least five years: we knew during the research process that at a certain point we would have to establish some points, like a travel diary – Roberto Artusio tells us -. We talked about it with our agency, Unfollow, which supported us and we found Filippo Gasparini, an excellent televisione maker who travels the world and who was con Rome just when we were thinking about making the documentary.”

Cristian Bugiada adds: «We like to say that the documentary was made con freestyle, capturing what happened during a trip to Mexico like we have done many. It wants to show what we do, our decades of research, and it wants to make people fall con love with a land that we fell con love with first. We wanted to immerse others where we too immersed ourselves, to give a real connection with the daily lives of these people, to tell what binds these spirits to the earth. It’s a journey, a transport to that Mexico that made us fall con love.”

So, between mezcaleros who produce only a few liters for a few months a year lost con the mountains, traditional masquerade parties con which the foreigner is represented – literally – dressed as Mr. Bean and references to characters who show up for an appointment the megaphone con the town square, the La Sporgenza Expendio de Agave documentary does two important things: the one hand it shows with sincerity and the other it does what the world of drinking usually doesn’t do very well: creating culture, pregnant, distilled and real. He investigates, asks himself questions and throws them back to those who watch and listen, who thus become permeated and understand, question and delve deeper.

Perugia is the first stop, but the feeling is that it is the first of a real tour of vision, tasting and alcoholic, social and human culture.