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In
the hearth of Langhe (not very far from Alba) one
can reach the areas of Barbaresco and Moscato,
where the municipality of Neive is located. The
ancient tower of the destroyed medieval castle and
the ancient village dominate it. Arriving from the
down side of the municipality (and following the
main road which crosses it), it can happen to run
into an old house with a garden bounded by an
ancient fence. Romano Levi (a detached and
introvert character with a great creative flair)
lives here; and here he distils his angelic
grappa. As evidence of this “wilderness”,
neither a word is written on the bell of his house
nor a sign (indicating the place of his distillery)
is present. His laboratory is discovered and
visited only by people who already know his
experience as artist-distiller (and then want to
meet him). This to say that it is absolutely
impossible to reach his shop by chance. Tourists
and collectors from all over the world nervously
walk along the courtyard of his house. They hope
to put their hands on one of the labels he
personally hand-draws; the fate does not smile at
these grappa lovers for many times. So they will
have to come back to Neive in another moment, if
they want to obtain the object of their desire).
Since the production is very limited, one sometime
cannot buy the angelic Levi’s grappa; however, a
warm hospitality will never be denied, as well as
a complete visit of the distillery (with
explanations given by his two valid assistants)
and a tasting of his grappa. The Levi’s
distillery history is so much simple as
fascinating: everything started when Levi Serafino
founded it in 1925 in Neive. Unfortunately, he
died in 1933 (leaving his wife and his two
children Lidia and Romano, who was only five). His
wife decided bravely to continue her husband
business. It passed to Romano when he was only
seventeen. He said in an interview: “It was a
good thing that my mother kept the distillery and
did not sell it; in 1945 only me and my sister
Lidia remained. What should we do, finding another
job? I did not really know. There was the
distillery, and we had to distil. However, making
the grappa was a different thing, if one considers
the good part of it: the fire, the embers, the
marc. Fortunately, one learns from his mistakes.
However, since we are dealing with something
repetitive (and alive), the variation continuously
occurs. In fact, the content of each bottle is
never the same to the one in the next bottle. Each
bottle is an unrepeatable individual, as well as
the individual who prepares it: that standing near
the wood and that standing farther, inside the
bottle…this is our job…”. Romano continued
on the road taken by his parents eminently.
Nowadays his grappa comes out of the alembic in
the period between September and April. In the
early sixties he wanted to mark his production
from his competitors ones. He personalized each
bottle with labels hand-drawn by himself or with
poems. The first hand-drawn-labelled bottles date
beck to 1963. Since then, this peculiar choice
brought him the fame and esteem of being an
eccentric artist. Veronelli gave him the nickname
of “Grappaiolo Angelico”. Nowadays these
labels are requested and collected all over the
world. The most precious ones are those with the
“wild woman” allegory. This grappa is produced
(according to Romano’s directions) by utilizing
the ancient method (with direct fire on the copper
boiler which contains marc and water). All the
equipment for its production is the original from
the beginning of the century (with only few
indispensable updates). Another peculiarity of the
production is the employment of “exhausted”
marc from the precedent vintage, which is dried
and pressed in order to catch fire under the
copper boiler in the next year distillations.
Everything smells of history and poetry in this
old- fashioned “factory”. It is impossible to
visit Langhe without dedicating at least one visit
to a very special character like Romano. Any other
curiosity about this eccentric character can be
discovered by visiting him directly in Neive,
where one can see and directly ask…
“wilderness permitting”.
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