Vittoria Marsica and Lorenzo Bruno — Radici Winery

Vittoria Marsica and Lorenzo Bruno, owners of the “Radici” Farm

“I’m Lorenzo Bruno, from the ‘Radici’ Farm.

The farm was founded in 2019. The original plan was to start by producing wine, which actually ended up being the last thing we began doing. In the meantime, however, we’ve also produced olive oil and legumes — both chickpeas and beans, including some heirloom varieties with low yields — in both dried and pre-cooked forms. We make tomato puree, ready-to-use sauces, and vegetables preserved in oil, and we process everything we grow. In fact, for our products preserved in oil, we use our own extra virgin olive oil. We’ve revived old recipes and traditions — the kinds of products that were once made at home.

The idea stems from a project linked to the work done primarily by my father in this vineyard. We wanted to bring it back to life; and the only way to do that was to clear everything out and replant it from scratch.

My wife’s parents play a key role in our business: first and foremost because her mother is in charge of the traditional recipes, as well as all the production processes and the management of the workshop and the retail store. We still have a lot to learn from her. My father-in-law is the one who puts our few and vague ideas into practice. If you take a look around here, you’ll see there’s no other hail protection system built this way. Without our parents, we wouldn’t have been able to do anything. It may be true that we spend all our vacations and weekends here, but it’s clear that we still wouldn’t be able to do everything on our own.

We’ve had the support of many people so far — my wife’s cousins, for example, provided us with the land, thereby saving us from losing our wine shares.

In ’98, we got married and moved to Lombardy; for now, the only way for both of us to live in both places involves traveling, which means commuting. So at least once a month, we take the train, the bus, the car — whatever’s available — and come to Morigerati to spend as much time as the winery needs. We decided to invest in the area even though we don’t live here; it was a way to stay connected to our roots, as the winery’s name suggests.

I left Morigerati in ’88–’89, right after graduating from high school, and I’ve always felt at home in Lombardy, but I feel this need. I’ve never cut ties with Morigerati. We have so much potential in this area; it’s just that, unfortunately, it almost seems to be a victim of a sort of neglect, of being conditioned to feel inferior — I don’t know in relation to what. I have a love-hate relationship with Morigerati: I love the place where I was born, I’m very happy to return there, and I want to help improve it — but, at the same time, it sometimes makes me angry because I don’t see the necessary steps being taken to get things done, perhaps even in the short term.

We who came from outside to invest everything we had in this area would like to see the same enthusiasm in other people who invest in something else — to improve the place where we live without waiting for anyone’s favor, in short.”