Music in life, music in wine, music in the family trattoria: music has always been one of the languages that belongs to Braida, from the passionate love of young Giacomo in the 1960s for jazz to the labels of Montebruna, signed by the greats of Italian music today.
GIANNI BASSO: “ROCCHETTA WAS OUR AMERICA, OUR CHICAGO, OUR NEW ORLEANS”
The great saxophonist Gianni Basso recounted in Nichi Stefi’s book dedicated to Giacomo Bologna:
“It was the 1960s, in Milan we played at Capolinea sul Naviglio, or in the RAI auditoriums, at G on the second floor. There weren’t many places where you could play jazz and be at peace. One of these was Giacomo’s trattoria. I don’t know how and why, but Giacomo’s true talent was that the people who came there were only the best.
Not that they were all experts in various jazz styles, absolutely not, but they knew how to listen. Maybe because the wine was good and never ran out, maybe because everyone was satisfied with the food, maybe because Giacomo always sat at a table, always in a different place, depending on how the evening went, he made a joke, said a word, organized a choir; he was always careful that everything worked, that everyone felt comfortable, and I remember our quartet, Valdambrini, Piana, Coscia, and I, who in that smoky place performed the best pieces, thanks also to the wine, to the Monella that went down the throat like nectar with its slightly sparkling point, ‘pétillant,’ is that how you say it, right?
It was our America, our Chicago, and our New Orleans, and when from America, the real one, an important guest like Gerry Mulligan or Joe Venuti with his violin arrived, we were overjoyed to bring them there because we understood that everyone felt at home. You should have seen how happy they were: more than if we had taken them to a big theater. Jazz music is born from the pain of a people redeeming itself, and it is also challenging to play, but this music can suddenly become cheerful, easy, even the tremor in the lips when you push into the sax can disappear, and this happened in Rocchetta, in the trattoria where I ate the best polenta with cod of my life, and I remember it was summer. But in Rocchetta, everyone is a bit crazy. I was with my quartet when we played for Giacomo’s wedding. That night never ended, and the people, my goodness, how many people!, were not only in the trattoria but also in the square. And the courses kept coming, and we played, drank, played, and I believe we were truly happy. This is what Giacomo gave you, that you were happy.”
INTERVIEW WITH GIANNI COSCIA, IN “IL RE DEL MOSTO”
“Giacomo was the first to tell me that music should be like wine, something immediate that comes from the heart.”
PAOLO FROLA
The guitar and verses of Dr. Paolo Frola, an imaginative doctor from Rocchetta Tanaro and passionate singer-songwriter, have always accompanied the meals, dinners, and celebrations of the Bologna family.
Here, in “Il Re del Mosto” he duets with Gianni Basso:
MONTEBRUNA – A LAND THAT SPEAKS
From a dream of Giacomo, the significant project of reunification of the important property of Montebruna in Rocchetta saw the light in ’94. Before being a wine, Montebruna is a magnificent hill, a land always cultivated as a vineyard, of great oenological value. Montebruna is also an inspiration that unites the generations of the Bologna family.
Among Giacomo’s desires was the acquisition of the lands of the Montebruna hill in Rocchetta Tanaro. The property was fragmented among numerous farmers, and at that time, the acquisition seemed impossible. But time finds a way to grant what initially seems to deny. And it is Giuseppe, in the Novata years, who resumes contacts for the lands. Despite being very young, but determined, he manages, with patient tenacity, to buy the majority of them.
Today, Montebruna – 40 hectares in total, of which 20 are vineyards dedicated to Barbera – has a particularly dense planting from which smaller clusters emerge, with optimal ripening and early harvest.
A land that speaks. This is the message that drives the project that led to the creation of the wine label.
The letters composing the name represent the numerous plots of land that have been acquired to rebuild that property.
They recall the rows drawn, calligraphically, by the words and poems inspired by the emotions stirred in their authors. Thus, through a natural process of identification between the vineyard and the verses dedicated to it, a voice has been given to a land that has much to tell and adorns its wine.
The singer-songwriter Bruno Lauzi, the eclectic Giorgio Faletti, Roby Facchinetti of the Pooh, the rocker and poet Omar Pedrini, and the Maestro par excellence, the chansonnier Paolo Conte, have become authors of a collection of compositions, treasures of the heart born from every encounter with Montebruna and its wine.
PRESS CONFERENCE FOR SNOB, PAOLO CONTE’S 2014 ALBUM IN BRAIDA
In the autumn of 2014, the Asti-born chansonnier Paolo Conte chose the historic Braida barricaia to present his album “Snob.” A sizable group of music journalists gathered in Rocchetta for the occasion: our cellars on via Roma, where Barbera reserves age for years, became the unusual venue for the press conference.