Progetti
Memories and Traditions of the Vineyards
Intangible knowledge and traditions play an essential role in ensuring the maintenance of the authenticity aspects of the UNESCO site. This is the starting point for the “Memories and Traditions of the Vineyards” project financed by MIBACT thanks to the funds of law 77/2006. The “heart” of the project is the creation of a multimedia archive of memory, which can be easily consulted from all over the world.
The Multimedia archive
The online platform takes the visitor by the hand and accompanies him through the history of the hills, a map, many places where past and present speak through images and sounds. The thematic areas are those that constitute the intangible cultural heritage for UNESCO: the set of traditions, oral expressions, performing arts, rituals, festive events, crafts, traditional agricultural practices that are a “living” expression of the identity of the communities and of the populations who recognize themselves in them. The multimedia archive is already populated by hundreds of files: vintage photographs, posters and postcards, historical films recovered from national archives, more recent videos. The proposed themes are: the management of the vineyard, the winemaking techniques, the festivals and traditions related to wine, the typical local productions connected to viticulture, the calendar of work in the vineyard, traditional recipes. The archive is available to anyone, public or private, who wants to deposit and share “pieces” of memory.
The Interviews
As part of the “Memories and Traditions of the Vineyards” project, 24 video interviews were carried out with expert connoisseurs of the area and its literary and popular culture, the wine production chain, events and traditions. Women and men from Langhe-Roero and Monferrato, with their generous testimony, help us to reconstruct and understand the world of wine, from vineyard management to winemaking techniques. The construction and architectural typologies of our countryside with their materials, from raw brick to canton stone. And then, again, the great writers of the territory (Cesare Pavese, Beppe Fenoglio, Davide Lajolo), peasant rites and religious festivals, songs, dances, popular theater.
The docufilm VITE! Journey to the center of an Earth
Play on the double meaning of “VITE!” (in italian both “vine” and “lives”) the first docufilm that tells the Vineyard Landscapes of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato, among the Italian World Heritage treasures.The body for the management and protection of the UNESCO site has entrusted the director Tiziano Gaia with the task of unearthing the baggage inimitable knowledge, knowledge and agricultural practices handed down from generation to generation, from the ancient Romans to the present day. Shot over two years, following the unchanging rhythm of the seasons, the film follows, portraits in their daily lives, pruners, winemakers, coopers , cellar masters, young students of the Alba wine school, historians, researchers. An epic journey through the hills and villages that dot the area of Southern Piedmont, included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014. Harvest, festivals and popular games, rural architecture, futuristic cellars alongside “ciabot” and “infernot”: the images compose a variegated and complex mosaic, as well as complex is the socio-economic and cultural fabric that animates one of the most prestigious wine districts in the world.United by the thin and symbolic thread of a red ball, on the great green stage are intertwined stories and traditions, memories and hopes, challenges and restarts, as in any self-respecting great journey. And so it is no coincidence that the beginning of the story is entrusted to that ancestral sea that once covered much of today’s Piedmont. A reference to the origins, a step into the myth. As the anthropologist Piercarlo Grimaldi says, in his role as “Virgil” in the film, “there was no interruption of knowledge from father to son, from grandfather to grandson : all generations continue to incessantly narrate the myths of this land. The hope is that this model will be able to maintain and know how to relentlessly narrate and re-narrate the myths of this territory. “
Learn more in the technical sheet
The Box Set
To preserve and disseminate the material collected as part of the project, a box containing a summary booklet and a USB key was created. The key contains the 24 video interviews made with local experts and the VITE! Documentary film. The intent is to deliver a work tool to students and researchers and leave a legacy to future generations.
Download the booklet of Memory and Traditions of the Vineyards