The Italian sun smiles on Caleffi
Caleffi Italy invited a small contingent of the South African plumbing profession to visit their home region north of Milan to see for themselves, as export area manager Fabio Rossi put it “how massive this international business is” that many South Africans erroneously see as a PRV specialist.
While the four South Africans – Plumblink commercial manager Gary Chandler, IOPSA executive director Brendan Reynolds, CalAfrica general manager Patrick Gordon and Plumbing Africa editor Eamonn Ryan – were blown away by the sheer size of its three factories and truly jaw-dropping fully automated warehousing facility (all of it in keeping with 4IR, the technology of which will be covered in the February issue), it was the trip itself which left an indelible mark on all.
The itinerary for this business trip was headed ‘Food and Wine Tour’ and that was no exaggeration. All Italians are passionate about food and every dish requires a ten-minute explanation – but it’s worth the prose. Twice each day the group visited what must have been Michelin three-star rated restaurants offering elite Italian red and white wines. The trip included visits to the cellars of two Italian wine estates.
The team was accommodated in the old-world Hotel Concorde in a small town called Arona, overlooking Lake Maggiore about 80km north of Milan in the Italian region of Piedmont (Piermonte). In Arona is to be found an abundance of historical monuments including a 9th century castle, a small Roman-style chapel and an enormous 17th century statue of San Carlone (Saint Charles Borromeo), in its time the largest upright bronze statue in the world until superseded by the Statue of Liberty.
However, what was on both the agenda and the menu was food and wine. The meticulously organised itinerary listed out all the restaurants starting with Tuesday (23 October) dinner at the Da Aldo restaurant in Arona.
Wednesday’s fare
Wednesday was down-to-work with a visit hosted by Rossi to Caleffi’s Pressco factory in Invorio, almost entirely automated and with quality control processes integrated into that automation. The trio of Chandler, Reynolds and Gordon inspected one of the rejects under a microscope and it took several minutes to find any fault. The tour proceeded to Caleffi’s nearby factory 3 plant in Gattico, where the level of automation if anything increased.
Thereafter they adjourned for lunch to La Macina restaurant in the town of Fontaneto d’Agogna, followed by a much-anticipated visit to car maker Alpha Romeo’s car museum on the outskirts of Milan. This housed not only the entire catalogue of Alpha Romeo cars from the earliest 1911 model of Alpha, but various prototypes which never made it to production, some limited production cars (as few as a dozen ever made) and finally the iconic racing cars that won races all over Europe until the 1980s. Dinner was a five-course spread at the La Piazzetta restaurant in Arona.
Thursday’s menu special
A wet Thursday saw the team descend on Caleffi’s headquarters in Fontaneto for a review of its largest manufacturing facility; its tremendous warehouse (containing approximately 15 double aisles 48m in height and each the depth of several rugby fields with not a human to be seen, and in fact, they only put on the lights so we could see its enormity); and its R&D and testing facilities, which had fairly recently been centralised to this location from all over the country. Testing is not only done here, but also at each plant and in fact by each robotic station.
The business part of the visit was now officially finished, and with a gear change the entertainment became serious. After yet another exquisite lunch at L’Impero restaurant in Sizzano, heart of the Nebbiolo (known locally as Spanna) red wine producing area, the team was transferred to Travaglinin wine estate in Gattinara. This wine producing area has been producing wine for hundreds of years, and for the past century this estate had been run by a single family. The wines are all made from the Nebbiolo grape variety, ranging from ‘Nebbiolo DOC Costa delle Sesia, ‘a young, fruity and easy-to-drink’ wine, which in Italy is virtually an insult, to Gatttinara DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) which ‘has great structure and longevity’ that ‘illustrates the full range of expressions Nebbiolo can achieve’, which is much more like it. Complexity on the taste buds is what Italy is all about, whether in its food or wine.
This was followed by dinner at La Capuccina restaurant in Cureggio, a converted farmstead with the actual restaurant in what had been the barn. For the first time, we were joined by well over a hundred other guests of Caleffi from all over Italy, as well as from Brazil, Germany and Georgia. It became evident for the first time that the trip was part of a much larger congregation and promotional activity by Caleffi, which each October brings together clients and representatives from all over the world for a climax the following day, Truffle Day.
Truffle Friday
After a wet Thursday, the sun burst out on cue on Friday for a day trip down south towards Genoa, to the modern vineyard of L’Astemia Pentita and its cellars in Barolo. The feasting was really only about to start, because this day was something special. Truffles are one of the most expensive foods (costing EUR3000 a kilogram, or a gram about EUR12). The gorging took place on an industrial scale, with dozens of plates available in a buffet (but was actually only a welcoming aperitif, or ‘starter to the starter’), with each dish tasting better than the last, which meant few diners could resist trying everything. This cellar was extremely modern, apparently with local winemakers dismissing it as ‘Disneyworld’, though it certainly had complex wines. Two hours of guzzling lined the stomachs of everyone for the actual meal which followed.
That meal was fortunately composed of three small dishes, which even then were only physically capable of being consumed if one left on the plate the pasta base. The bus ride back to the Arona was remarkable for the contented quietness of the engorged guests – especially when one considers that Italians, and Brazilians even more so, seldom shut up. The costly truffles, by the way, were frankly nothing to miss. They are expensive because they grow underground, can only be located by highly-trained dogs which live the whole year for the one week when truffles are harvested. That week fortuitously had been the week of the trip.
This article was first published by the author in Plumbing Africa.