Meet Dante's heir

You may have had a Masi wine but you may not know of the company's tie-up with the "divine" poet's descendant. Anoothi Vishal meets Count Aligheri

So, do you have any books in your house?” I ask Count Pieralvise Serego Aligheri innocently enough and his eyes light up at the mention. “Ah, I know what you mean,” he replies in his characteristic Italian-English: “No, we don’t have any of those. Many people have tried to find those and they think they will find (them) in our house. For that you will have to tear it (the house) down,” he says.

 

This mysterious bit of conversation will perhaps become more intelligible to you if we tell you that Aligheri is the direct descendant of the “divine poet” Dante Aligheri —his 20th generation successor, if you please. The “books” that we are talking about are thus no ordinary ones but the lost cantica of the Divine Comedy, Paradiso to be more precise. Since Dante spent a part of his exile in Verona, on the outskirts of which still exists the estate of his descendants (the poet’s son Pietro, a jurist, had bought a house in a nondescript village here in the mid 14th century, and the earliest portions of the present Aligheri home date back to that time), there’s no stopping rumours that the lost manuscript of the epic work remains hidden in the home. But if indeed it was walled up here, says Aligheri shaking his head firmly, “at least we haven’t found it.”

But to call it a house in the ordinary sense would be a mistake. The family villa, once a smaller manor in Gargangnago (a corner of the Valpolicella region known for its wines), comes complete with a 16th century chariot, frescos on its walls as well as a neoclassical façade that is courtesy a partially-completed project undertaken in the 18th century. That project was never completed and older structures dot the estate but the earliest ones are no longer visible above the layer of newer construction, the Count rues.

The family has, in fact, painstakingly pieced together records that point to the first purchase that Pietro made in terms of land and the house that he lived in. Since I am unable to visit the home due to a paucity of time, Aligheri, ever hospitable, hands me a thick but beautifully produced tome: “Here, take this,” he says, giving me a book on the history of his celebrated family. And it is thanks to it that I glean many of the details.

I ask Aligheri to signs the book for me and he does so “with sympathy”! Just as I am beginning to wonder whether he is indeed sympathetic about my work as a journalist or about the fact that I have been subjected to so much wine while in Verona, at the wine fair where I meet him, it is revealed that what the count means may perhaps be loosely translated as “with empathy”! Or some such.

By all accounts, the Aligheris family is an empathatic one; held up as particularly hospitable. There’s easy charm with which they entertain visitors and friends and throw open their home — perhaps in a throwback to the manner in which their ancestors did just that when they ran a popular literary circle from here in the 19th century. The estate itself, according to the book, is aristocratic — great wrought iron gates with a coat of arms, gilded spikes — but its inhabitants are hardly intimidating.

“Sadly, none of us dabble in poetry,” smiles the Count, pointing to his young daughter accompanying him. She is, as I learn, learning the ropes of the family business too — winemaking and marketing. The Aligheris turned to agriculture soon after they settled in the region and have had farms producing everything from rice to olive oil. But today, if the name is known all over the world, it is for their amazing wine. If you have tried the Amarone, you would surely have heard of them, if not known their Dante connection.

One of the wines deemed “trendy” across the world (apparently even in China, where hardly any great quality wine is consumed, only tea), the Amarone, made from a unique process of dried grapes, is heady with a high alcohol content. The Masi label is well known all over — the company has a tie-up with the Aligheri family who are the major producers for Masi wines. The count shows me an old bottle with his family crest and a line from the Purgatorio, the portion of the Divine Comedy that ddetails the poet’s journey through this world and is said to be the most lyrical, on it. Newer bottles, of course, have different labels but it is another experience drinking from a bottle with Dante’s poetry inscribed on it.

“Would you like to try some?” asks the polite Aligheri. With that he conducts a personal tasting for me. My reaction clearly pleases him since he is proud of his wine. Masi is present in India, of course, and it is a country that Aligheri wants to have more truck with in the near future. He had visited Rajasthan many years ago, he says. It may be time to renew that acquaintance.