Links:
Podere le Fornaci. If you’re in Greve in Chianti I highly recommend you to visit the farm and taste some of Valentina’s goat cheese and goat’s milk yogurt.
A lovely video about Valentina and Nicolò’s story at Podere le Fornaci. Unfortunately only in Italian.
Vitique, a gourmet restaurant right outside Greve in Chianti.
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Today I want to introduce you to Valentina Gadotti. She has a small herd of Chamois goats at Podere Le Fornaci, in the countryside outside Greve in Chianti. She makes artisanal cheeses and is an active participant in the food sovereignty movement.
I learned about Valentina and her work while having lunch at Vitique, a gourmet restaurant right outside Greve in Chianti. I was enjoying a risotto with fresh goat cheese and licorice powder — unusual but absolutely delicious. When I asked, the waiter explained that the cheese was from Podere le Fornaci, a small farm only a mile from the restaurant. So of course I had to visit the farm, meet Valentina, and hear her story.
Valentina had just finished her MA in Political Science, but was reluctant to continue to the PhD program. She’d always loved the idea of living on the land and producing her own food, but she realized she didn’t know how to make bread or even how to light a fire. So she took a huge chance and moved from northern Italy to Tuscany to work as a volunteer on farm that produces mostly olive oil, wine and vegetables.
One spring day she walked to Podere Le Fornaci to buy some goat cheese. The jasmine covering the old stone farmhouse was blooming, and she fell immediately in love with the place. Talking to the owner, she learned that he was looking for others to continue his work with the goats so that he could retire. Valentina and her partner Nicolò decided to jump in.
From their volunteer work, they had some experience in agriculture, but they knew nothing about raising goats or making cheese. All they knew was that they wanted to make the goat’s welfare their priority.
The first few years were difficult. Valentina knew nothing about microbiology and chemistry which are the foundation of cheesemaking, and it was a long time before she had anything she could sell at the farmers’ market or to restaurants. She cried herself to sleep after some of her goats died during birth because she didn’t know how to help them. The work was 24/7, and it was exhausting.
She taught herself microbiology and learned from hard experience how to care for the goats. When she was explaining those hard years to me, she said, “milk talks, and I just had to learn to listen”. The milk is a reflection of everything that happens to the goats—how they are feeling, if they’ve been fighting, if the male is with the herd or not, even the weather. Valentina learned that the art of the cheesemaker is to adapt to the unique qualities of the day’s milk to produce the best possible cheese.
Milk is indeed a living being that behaves and tastes different every day.
For me, Valentina’s story is one example of a broad movement of young, educated people choosing to make lives for themselves in the Tuscan countryside. Valentina moved from northern Italy to a small goat farm. Others grew up in Tuscany and chose to stay on the land, turning their backs on opportunities in the cities. What unites them all is their deep love for the land and for the people of Tuscany. Look for other stories from these people in future podcasts!
See you next week.
Cute artwork inside the the farm’s cheese shop that says: (from up-left to down-right)
November/December: pregnancy and rest
January/February: birth
April to October: milk and cheese
May: hay
August/ September: breeding season
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