This post is about Francesca Margiotta, an amazing young lady from a small, family-run Abruzzo winery, who followed her passion and conquered Italy's wine world. It's a freakin' movie waiting to be made.
A freaky, fluky good thing happened to my wife and I four years ago – a marketing idea I’d given up on twice worked out like magic – and it changed our lives.
As of today, we have been running our small-group tour company out of a restored villa in the Abruzzo region of Italy for four seasons and business has been great. We don’t really do any advertising either outside of a few Facebook postings.
What’s our secret? Nothing. Thanks to that crazy good thing that happened, it’s all word of mouth.
Four years ago, when we were getting our idea going, we developed strategies for all aspects of the business. Among other things, we had a business plan, a financial plan, sales plan, and a marketing plan. The latter called for us to work with travel agents, online sites like Trip Adviser and Bookings.com, attend travel shows in winters, and offer to speak to any group that would have us.
We haven’t had to do any of that because Step 1 of the plan was for me to try to get the newspaper I used to work for in Canada to publish a series of stories on us quitting our jobs, selling everything we had, and moving to Italy to start our tourism business. I figured if I could get the series published, it would probably result in a few bookings.
I was eventually successful in getting that series of articles into the Travel section of the paper, and it was picked up by several other Canadian newspapers in the chain too. The series ran for 12 consecutive Saturdays from February to May 2016 when we opened.
In those 12 weeks, our reservations exploded. We filled up for 2016 and most of 2017 with people who read the series. In 2017, we rented a townhouse close by to accommodate more people. Those clients talked to their friends and relatives and 2018 was full before we knew it. People started coming back for a second and even a third trip.
That series of articles was the absolute key to our success here in Abruzzo. Without it, I don’t have a clue where we would be.
Four years later, I still shit my pants a little just thinking about this, but that series of articles almost didn’t happen. The fact is, I gave up on the series twice before it ever got going.
In July of 2015, my wife Lisa and I were moving to Abruzzo to oversee the last of the renovations on our historic villa in the town of Torre de’Passeri, about 160 kilometres east of Rome.
According to our marketing plan, that June I contacted the then managing editor of the paper, where I had worked as a reporter until 2009, and pitched the series idea as a sort of Under the Tuscan Sun inspiring life change story crossed with a David Sedaris-like frankness multiplied by my anxiety-driven nature. The managing editor, whom I knew and respected, liked the idea, but money was an issue. She said we needed to speak to the editor.
Shit. In 2008, the editor, who was in a different role at the time, had to inform me that I wouldn’t be part of the paper’s coverage of an election due to a perceived conflict of interest our senior newsroom management felt I had. I had endorsed a friend of mine who was running as a candidate, and they didn’t like.
This was one of a series of issues I had with senior management at the time, and he was just doing his job delivering a message I could tell he didn’t agree with. Still, I couldn’t keep my hot head cool.
Instead, at the meeting where he delivered the message, I could tell that he could tell that I was seething and within a hair of going smashy smashy.
So, this was the guy I had to pitch my series to, and I figured it would go one of two ways: He would turn me down to punish the guy who was a dick to him for doing his job seven years earlier; or he would say yes in order to make up for being a dick to the reporter who was only trying to do his job.
Turns out, there was a third option I didn’t consider. The editor was completely and utterly professional. His questions about the series showed he had read the outline and sample. He said he thought the paper’s readers would love the story, and that I should not be afraid to use my full voice. He verbally gave the green light for the series to run February, March and April 2016, complete with pictures and videos. He said other papers in the chain might run the series too.
Ding. Ding. Ding. It was a knock out, slam dunk, grand slam, glass of champagne outcome.
Lisa and I and our old dogs moved to Abruzzo in July of 2015, and by September, the managing editor of the paper had left for another job. In October, the editor also left.
Crap. The two people at the paper who agreed to run the series were gone, and I was 7000 kilometres away.
I sent an email to the new editor explaining things. Crickets.
I thought, “Oh well … she’s probably just getting her footing.” I emailed again a couple weeks later, and, again, nothing. I phoned and left a message. Nothing. More emails. Nothing.
By December, I had accepted that the series wasn’t going to happen. Knowing now how our whole lives hinged on this, I shudder, but I wasn’t going to chase this anymore. I didn’t like making pitches in the first place. It felt so needy.
I’d given up when Lisa urged me to give it one more try.
This time I contacted a fantastic friend of mine who was still working at the paper as a reporter, and she said not to bother with the new editor. She said go directly to the travel section editor. I did so, and the travel editor responded almost immediately saying she knew nothing about the series or the agreement to run it.
I dug out the pitch again and sent it to her, and more crickets. So as not to appear pushy, I let a week go by before sending another email. Nothing. By now it was Christmas, and I gave up again. It just wasn’t to be.
Then, in mid-January, I got an email from another person at the paper whom I didn’t know saying she was the editor for the series. She said it was time for me to send the first installments, pictures and videos so she could get them ready for publication in mid-February.
Without missing a beat, I said of course and got to work. The rest is history.
I found out later that the travel editor had tentatively accepted the series, pending budget approval, and penciled it in for publication. Then, she forgot to tell me when the budget was approved. She was off sick, there were the holidays, and there was a lot of senior staff turnover at the time. It just got lost in the mix. The lady who phoned me looking for the material was working from the tentative schedule. I just went with the flow when the opportunity presented itself.
The rest is history.
That’s how one of the most important things to have ever happened to Lisa and me and certainly the most important factor in the success of our business came to be.
I think it was magic.
People often ask me what the big differences are between Canada, where I’m from, and Italy, where I have lived for 4 ½ years with my wife running a small-group tour company.
There are a lot of differences, but one of the big ones is the driving.
In Canada for the most part, people treat the roads as a place to get from A to B in a safe and orderly manner. In Italy, it seems the idea is always to drive as aggressively as possible, taking any and all steps to gain even the slightest advantage over other drivers.
I know this because I’ve done a lot of driving in both countries. As a journalist in Canada, I spent a lot of time on the road, and in Italy, as part of my duties for our company, I’ve made the two hour trip from our place in Torre de’Passeri in the region of Abruzzo to Rome more than 100 times to pick up and drop off guests. I’ve also done more than 150 tour days.
To illustrate, I’m going to break it down to open highway driving, highway driving in heavy traffic, secondary road driving, and city driving.
Open Highway – Get outta my way!
The trip to Rome is mostly on a four-lane divided highway where speed limit is 130 km/h. You’d think that’s plenty fast, and you’d be wrong – 200 km/h or more is normal.
This makes passing slower moving vehicles, like transports going up hills, an adventure.
I’ve looked in my mirrors and saw no car behind in the left lane then pulled out to pass and magically there’s a guy (it’s always a guy) standing on his brakes so he doesn’t slam into the back of me. This is usually followed by a torrent of flashing headlights, blasting horn, and hand gestures suggesting my mother’s virtue is going to be compromised in the very near future.
Usually, I floor it, pass the vehicle, get back in the right lane as fast as possible, and then try to sign language my apologies. It never works. Instead often the other driver inches up beside me and gives me the gesture that suggests I should explore the possibly of having sex with myself a before they take off like a shot into the distance and within seconds disappears from view. It’s not pretty and if I have guests in the vehicle, they invariably ask what all that was about. That’s my cue tell them that this is all very normal.
Side Roads – Get the hell outta my way!
When it comes to secondary roads, you need to understand something about Abruzzo geography. There are almost no flat spaces or straight lines anywhere. We have hills, bigger hills, mountains, and a tiny, kinda flat strip along the winding Adriatic coast.
This makes for narrow, twisting roads, filled with switchbacks, often with steep drops just off the shoulder. Guard rails are spotty to non-existent, wildly uneven pavement is routine, and you share the road with cyclists, transports, cows, sheep and, at night, wild boar big enough to total your car.
For Italians, these conditions present the perfect opportunity to hone their rally car skills as they race each other up and down mountains like they need to get to grandma’s house before the pasta gets cold. They tailgate so closely, you can see the colour of their eyes. They pass on curves and when there’s not enough room, often forcing on-coming cars to swerve right onto the shoulders to avoid head-on collisions. They floor it on the straights and brake hard into the turns, using both sides of the road and drifting like a Formula 1 drivers.
The trick on these roads is to not pay attention. If a car is tailgating you, ignore it. If they are flashing their headlights, ignore them. If they are pulling out to pass on a curve, let them go. If they pull out to pass while a car is coming at you, pull over to the far right of the road so the imminent head-on impact glances off the left side of your car and possibly keeps you and your passengers alive.
Another option is to get in on the fun. If a driver is tailgating you, slow down on the curves. This makes them nuts. Then, just before they pull out to pass on a straightaway, drop a gear and floor it. It’s fun.
Highway traffic jams – Anything goes
My traffic jam experience comes largely from the Grande Raccordo Anulare, Rome’s outer ring road. Just over 68 kilometres of four maddening lanes in each direction. On a good day, it’s awful. On a bad day, it’s like a root canal crossed with a colonoscopy.
The problem is there are way, way too many vehicles on the road in Rome due to a series of failed or stupid traffic management, public transportation and city planning projects.
At almost all times of day, 365 days a year, the ring road is plugged up with frustrated commuters, delivery trucks of dubious repair belching dark diesel exhaust, transport trucks grinding gears, and scooters and motorcycles flitting about like moths next to a flame.
The first thing that happens is the right shoulder of the road becomes another lane. Then the shoulder gets jammed too. To get around all this mass of vehicles, motorcycles and scooters start weaving in and out between the cars, using any gap they can fit through. With nothing else to do, the vehicle drivers try to guess which lane is moving faster and start cutting each other off in order to get that all-important car length over their rivals. Horns blast, birds are flipped, Mother Mary is cursed in unimaginable ways.
All this often takes place in excruciatingly hot temperatures under a beating sun. You can smell the rubber, the pavement, the fuel, the frustration. It’s bad.
City Driving – It’s a test of nerves.
Driving in Italian cities is essentially a dare. The narrow streets are not on grids. There are no lanes. You must drive aggressively to get anywhere because, again, there are way too many vehicles. The official rules are arbitrary – two-way streets become one-ways randomly, unmarked lane restrictions are enforced by photo sensors, whole areas are closed to traffic. There are linked roundabouts with no traffic lights and tourists walking around like a bunch of zombies.
Unlike the highways where fast fancy cars rule, downtowns are the domain of the crappy delivery truck, the smashed-up microcar, the pushy city bus, the buzzing scooter, and the wildly impatient taxi. You don’t see many fancy cars downtown because the owners of fancy cars don’t want them to get hit, and in downtowns in Italy, you are going to hit stuff and stuff is going to hit you.
In the roundabouts, you inch forward, daring to hit the cars in front or beside you. The other drivers dare you back until somebody hits somebody or somebody relents. Inch, brake. Inch, brake as tourists pick their way through the vehicles and scooters dart everywhere.
The side streets are only a couple feet wider than a small car, and only inches wider than our nine-passenger tour vans. These streets are packed with tourists and cafes that illegally put tables outside, further encroaching on the roadway. More than once, I’ve clipped these tables and once I ran over a café sandwich board. But the waiters and owners don’t get mad. They know they aren’t supposed to be putting that stuff on the roadway.
Then there are the impossibly tight turns onto idiotically small streets. So many vehicles hit the corners of the buildings, they are chipped away and covered in rainbows of vehicle paint scrapings.
The bumping cars, the scraped vehicles, the inching traffic, the horns, the shouting. There’s nowhere to park. The police yell at you to keep moving. The one-way streets make no sense. There are so many minor fender-benders, people don’t even stop to survey the damage. They don’t get their vehicles repaired either because it’ just going to happen again tomorrow.
It’s chaotic. It’s nerve wracking. Even Romans hate driving in Rome.
All in all, the driving culture in Italy illustrates a paradox about Italians in general. They are mild-mannered, friendly people, but when you put them behind the wheel of a car, even a rusting, 40-year-old piece of junk, they are ridiculously impatient..
When it was time for my pigs to become prosciutto, my friend Alfredo and my buddies came through and the results were great.
Without much choice, I found myself taking part in an Abruzzese tradition in the last few months - turning pigs into delicious cured meats. It sounded like a good idea when I agreed to it at the bar. Click and picture above or the title to the left to read the blog.
This is a story about a chainsaw, a sucker and a furbo. Spoiler alert: I’m the sucker.
One of the great things about chucking your work-a-day life in North America and moving to Italy to start a tourism business is that you get to meet a whole new set of awesome people including some with whom you form business relationships and friendships.
For my wife Lisa and I, there are too many to mention in one blog, but we want to take the time to single out the Guardiani family of the Guardiani-Farchione Wine and Olive Oil Agency. It’s a small, family-run agency on the rise whose products are considered some of the best in Europe, and we are proud to call them friends and partners.
For more than 200 years, the family has created wonderful products in their cantina located in the basement of their historic home in Tocco da Casauria, about five kilometres from our place, Villa d’Abruzzo, in Torre de’Passeri.
Today, the business is run by Paolo Guardiani and his wife Stefania Ricci with the help of their two children Maria Claudia and Giampaolo. It’s an understatement to say they have been huge supporters of Amazing Abruzzo Tours since before we opened officially in May 2016.
It all started early in the morning of Jan. 4, 2016 and I was in a panic. We had hosted a family of six the night before as a sort of test run of the villa. In our correspondence, I believed they’d told me they didn’t want to do any activities like a pasta making class or a winery visit that day, so I scheduled nothing.
The Guardiani family at harvest time a few years ago.
Then when they arrived on Jan. 3, 2016, they said they were looking forward to the cooking class and winery visit the next morning. After changing my underwear, we hastily arranged for Cesidia, a lady we barely knew at the time, to do a pasta making class. While that was going on, I zoomed to the two closest wineries to see if we could arrange a quick tour and tasting.
Christmas lasts from Dec. 25th to Jan. 6th in Italy. The wineries were closed. I googled wineries close by. Went to two more – closed. I called Lisa and told her to stall the cooking class. More google and I raced to an address in Tocco da Casauria – a big residential building right in the middle of town. My heart sunk because at the time I didn’t know that the oldest cantinas (the places they make the wines) are in people’s basements. The name was on the door though, so I rang the buzzer, and the door was opened by a man.
I really didn’t speak Italian at the time and I later found out that the guy I was talking to was the winery’s labourer from Macedonia. He was watching the place while the owners were away, and he spoke almost no Italian either. Still, I made it clear that in about an hour I was showing up with six people for a tour and tasting. He said no the owners weren’t there. I walked by him to the tasting room, and it was perfect. I said where’s the cantina. He pointed downstairs, and I raced down. It was spectacular. By this time another guy was there who, I found out later, was the Stefania’s brother who didn’t work at the winery and who knew nothing about wine.
I said please, please, please, just cut up some bread and cheese and open a few bottles. After saying no a few more times, they gave in to my desperation and agreed.
Forty-five minutes later, the guests arrived, Lisa did the translation, and the tour and tasting went off great. The guests even bought a bunch of bottles and some of the world-class olive oil the Guardiani-Farchione’s make.
A week later, I got a call from Stefania and Paolo saying that they had been in Rome for Christmas, and, if we were planning to bring more people, it would be nice of us to give a bit more notice. I tried to explain the situation I had been in, and they invited us to come and speak to them.
At that meeting, they took us on a proper tour of the cantina and did a great tasting of all their wines, all of which are excellent. The cantina and tour were exactly what we were looking for – a small, family run business in a sea of industrial wine producers, and they themselves were lovely.
They agreed to host our guests each week for cantina tours and wine, olive oil, cheese and cured meat tasting, and we adopted their wines as our house wines and their oil for our kitchen. Most wineries charge at least 10 euro per head for a basic tasting with some as high as 25 euro. How much did they want? Nothing, but they asked if we could try to help them break into the notoriously hard Canadian government run liquor stores? We said yes.
In the first year, we brought a total of about 200 people 26 groups to the cantina and we made zero progress on getting their wines into Canada. Last year we brought more than 350 people there in 33 groups, and we are happy to say that half way through the season, we were able to introduce the Guardianis to Sylvan Audette and his brother Jocelyn, a couple of awesome guys and newly minted wine importers to Quebec and Ontario.
The Audettes have slogged through the red tape in Quebec and Ontario, and now they are taking orders for private deliveries through their website - http://www.olkades.com. You just go there, pick your language, select the SAQ or LCBO under the “Our wines/Nos Vins,” pick some Guardiani-Farchione wines, pay a deposit and in a couple months, the wines are delivered to your local liquor store where you pay the balance.
It’s a little more expensive than buying the plonk off the shelves, but it’s well worth it. Their robust, unoaked Montepulciano d’Abruzzo red is delicious. The crisp Trebbiano d’Abruzzo is sings in your mouth. The Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo rose tastes better than any other rose I’ve ever had. And the Pecorino d’Abruzzo white is as rich and flavourful as a white wine can be.
I have no qualms about urging those of you who live in Quebec or Ontario to go to Olkades website and order a case or two or 10. You will not be disappointed.
It’s also the least I can do for the Guardiani family. They have been very gracious to us, and I wish them great success in the Ontario and Quebec wine markets. They deserve it.
I went to language school in Italy hoping to improve my communication skills. It worked. I have a basic grasp of the language now. More than that though, I learned what it takes to make a real difference in the lives of less fortunate people and just how lucky I was to be raised in Canada.
My Italian was so bad when I first moved to Italy, I got myself into a few embarrassing situations by using the wrong words for things. It was pretty funny at times, but it showed me that I needed to get better at the language fast.
Guest Blog: Helen Romagnoli Kotrus' grandparents left Abruzzo for Canada more than 100 years ago. In 2016, Helen visited Abruzzo, and with the help of Amazing Abruzzo Tours, she reconnected with her heritage. She visited her grandparents' village of Rocco San Giovanni on the Adriatric coast, the church they were baptized in, and she even met cousins. Read as Helen visits the land of her dreams.
When the kids started arriving at the villa in July 2016, we adjusted our tours to fit. The plan was to be less National Geographic and History Channel and more cartoon and scary movie. Turns out, the pre-Roman, Roman and medieval landscape and history of the Abruzzo region of Italy are perfect for this. Everywhere you go there are heros and villains, blood thirsty stories, magic, and more poopy jokes than you would think.
When we first told people in Italy our plans for a tour company and holiday villa in the Abruzzo region, they were pretty skeptical. But after renovations on the villa were finished and guests started arriving by the van load, it didn't take long for people in our town of Torre de'Passeri to get in on the action.
The weather in Abruzzo in May, June and July of 2016 - our first months of operations - was some of the wettest on record. We had to abandon our planned tour schedules and improvise day trips for our guests. It was challenging but we found a way to do it thanks to some of my new heroes, Italian meteorologists who came to our rescue.
When Lisa and I started out last year, we worried about how groups of strangers were going to interact in the intimate settings of our villa and tours. We hoped that by creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere, our guests would feel comfortable being themselves and get along. It worked out better than we imagined.
During our second week of operations, Lisa and I were so burnt out, two of our guests took it upon themselves to give us a couple counselling sessions. It helped us realize we needed to rest and relax for two reasons: We couldn't go on as we were; and our health was now linked directly to the health of our business.
During our second week of operations, I made the obvious mistake of sending a group of guests on a day trip without having done the trip myself. It resulted in a harrowing drive on a terrible mountain road for our guests. Luckily, afterwards, they were gracious about it. Dumb move Jake. Lesson learned.
The minute we opened our doors to guests in the spring of 2016, our chef Cesidia and tour guide Luca were stars. This was a good thing because my wife and I had exactly no experience running an Italian tour company and holiday villa.
Our first guests arrived on April 30, 2016 and the last couple weeks before were pretty nutty as we scrambled to get the place ready and our construction crew put in long hours finishing off our pool and terrace. After almost five years of planning and toil, we were finally open, and it felt great.
