Home Restaurant Page Essays Journal
To show how quickly this transition from peasantry to elite occurred let us look at the Poli family history. Jacopo Poli is the present day owner of a prestigious Grappa business. To give perspective in 2000 he was in his early 40Ős. Grappa originated in the Piedmont district of Northern Italy near Venice. This is where the Poli family has lived as long as records go back.
JacopoŐs great grandfather Titta sold hats for a living, but his true passion was Grappa. To supplement his income he went door to door with a small illegal still, distilling pomace for his neighbors. Grandfather Giobatta Poli legitimized the business in 1898 by modifying a locomotive steam engine. Father Tony Poli continued business as his father had done. They made their grappa in the traditional way with 12 copper cauldrons, which were discontinuous stills rather than continuous.
Seeing a failing business, Jacopo, the son, upgraded the business. The coarse drink that his great grandfather had peddled to the peasantry, and that his Grandfather had turned into a legitimate business, was falling out of favor - Too strong for the growing middle class. The Father refused to change. The Son refined the grappa parameters against his fatherŐs wishes to acknowledge the new economic reality; the peasant class had disappeared replaced by a prosperous middle class - from the proletariat to the bourgeois.