Page 64 - Protagonist 108

PROTAGONIST / SEDUCTION IN THE VINEYARD

I take advantage and visit a client or two”. Valentina Argiolas has it exploded while I was in New York. Then, with time, I learned to

also shaken off her bonds. Of course, nobody ever chained her to live with it.” Chiara Soldati, who runs La Scolca winery with her

the dogmas of her ancestral Sardinia, but there was a risk of her father in Gavi, Piedmont, describes the same burden. She uses

remaining behind, or at best, alongside the men of the family. And more positive terms, though: “I have an adolescent son aged 13,

how! And yet she, too, found herself taking that little, enormous but I believe it is possible to combine a presence in the winery

step. Taking over the reins of the winery, accepting hard work and with the commitment of motherhood. Admittedly, it isn’t easy,

the gratification that comes with it. Getting out there in person. it’s all about calibrating your time as well as you can. If a meeting

Her travels abroad. The communication. The events. That spark of finishes late in the evening, maybe I will skip dining out and rush

creativity that transforms a bottle into a multiplier to the airport to grab the last flight. I know, it is

of sensations, emotions, and reflections. “My } Degrees and esteem difficult, but I also know that we businesswomen
grandfather Antonio, who founded the winery are earned in the must perform a difficult balancing act”.
and died in 2009 at the venerable age of 102 and field, but I must say Soldati, granddaughter of the writer Mario,
a half, would often tell us that my grandmother that women fiercely defends the spaces of freedom and
Bonaria had played an extremely important are forgiven less creativity she has carved out over 20 years for
part in the foundation of the company. It was herself, the first woman from a family that has

an important, but background, role, at least to lived among the vines for five generations:

all appearances. These days, I am right in the fray. This job, going “Degrees and esteem are earned in the field, but I must say that

abroad, meeting other people, our sales in emerging countries: we women are forgiven less”. It doesn’t take much to ignite the

all this helps to broaden the horizons that sometimes restrict usual old prejudice. Or perhaps, we think that the fair sex are

us Sardinians. Wine helps me to go beyond, to grow, and to weaker and vulnerable. And yet, women also bring sensitivity and

understand nuances; but then, almost as if by magic, I find myself creativity into the mix. “I learned to recognize wines like people”,

debating and conversing with artists from Sardinia, and a writer concludes Chiara Soldati. “I really like vertical tasting: you sense a

like Marcello Fois sculpts our identity. nuance, you grasp the difference between one year and the next,

And our Turriga has brought us a minor oenological miracle: you discover tastes and defects, you let the memories flow”. It is

go out into the world, but don’t cut your roots. Then, sure, like cradling the person you love. And going around the world

there are the difficulties, actually the difficulty. I am a mother of with them, proudly. Yes, because every glass contains a piece of

two children aged six and three, and a pang of guilt strikes me, our civilization. The ladies of wine have learned to recognize it

relentlessly, every time I board an airplane. I remember one day and to offer it to those unlucky enough to not know it yet.

From left, Natalia and Irina Guicciardini Strozzi, Chiara Soldati and Valentina Argiolas. They were photographed in Palazzo Bovara
in Milan, on the occasion of the ‘Women and wine, the other half of the glass’ encounter, under the aegis of the Vendemmia
di Montenapoleone: they exhibit incredible desire to prove themselves, and great care to preserve their history, traditions and roots.

64 PROTAGONIST / N. 108