The excellences of the Sicans
In San Biagio Platani
“Slow Food” cheeses
with goat’s milk
Producing them are two brothers
who raise the Girgentana,
endangered breed
Free mind between heaven and earth. It happens in the heart of the Sicani, in the countryside of the small village of San Biagio Platani, famous for its Easter Arches. And if a job gives you this serenity of mind, it is certainly a good job. All the more so, if its fruits are excellent: as many as 45 types of goat cheeses distributed throughout Italy and made from the milk of the endangered Girgentana breed, so much so that the cheeses in question are Slow Food presidia.
But before being a dairy company, La Mannirata, owned by brothers Stefano and Vincenzo Vinti, is a way of life. Both previously did something else: Stefano, 30, was a personal trainer; Vincenzo, 41, was in the world of wind energy, and his job always took him places, until in 2017 the company he had been employed by for about a decade, and of which, he confesses, he had grown a bit fed up, entered a crisis.
“On that occasion,” says Vincenzo Vinti, “an idea that had been rattling around in my head for some time began to take shape: the dairy farm. Although my father did something else entirely by profession, he was commander of the municipal police in San Biagio Platani, both our parents’ families were farming families who made their living from agriculture. In short, the relationship with the land, with nature has always been very strong. In spite of everything, when I started talking about my intention to set up a dairy farm, almost everyone took me for a fool: the myth of the fixed job is hard to dispel!”
Almost everyone except Papa Girolamo, who skillfully, and repeatedly, probed his son’s intentions and found him always steadfast in his purpose, at one point bought him an acre and a half of land in Contrada Coda di Volpe, a plot of land that has always been known as La Mannirata, which, in Sicilian, Vincenzo says, means “flock,” nomen omen.
“That’s how we started,” he says, “with twenty meticulous goats and with my father who, trying to remember how to make cheese, would launch into often unsuccessful experiments. In short, the bets on how long we would last were always open.”
Then, the turning point. His brother Stefano, who at first didn’t want to know about the project and then, instead, left for Piedmont for his first training course, which was to be followed by many others, also became interested in the project.
“Now,” says Vincenzo Vinti, ” Stefano is a master cheesemaker: this job is in his blood and every time he can, he leaves to go and learn something new. I, on the other hand, take care of the animals.”
Today the La Mannirata dairy farm, which is part of the Sicani Rural Quality District, has grown from the initial one and a half hectares to twenty-four hectares in size. And the goats, which at the beginning of the activity were only twenty, now number three hundred, two hundred of which are Girgentana breeds.
“The others,” says Vincenzo, “are mestizo, like the 20 we started with and are very fond of. But the turning point, at the farm level, was made possible by the Girgentana goats with the sweetness of their milk that makes the cheeses unique; I like to say that in the area of goat cheeses, the Girgentana is the Ferrari of goats.”
Not only cheeses, but alsoexperiential tourism. “With our friend Pierfilippo Spoto, who is very active in the area,” says Vincenzo Vinti, “we started collaborating as early as 2019. The idea was to enhance and promote the territory, but also to shake off the shepherd’s gruff air that he has in the collective imagination. Thus the Day of the Shepherd was born .”
It is an experience that begins around ten o’clock in the morning with stories told in the sheepfold and continues with the manual milking of the goats, the tasting of freshly milked milk and a first cheese tasting; then, the adventure continues in the open air, in the middle of the pasture with all the little goats grazing happily; and since, as we know, good air makes you hungry, at some point a picnic in the shade with bread, cheese and good wine is a must. “Between 6 and 7 p.m.,” says Vincenzo Vinti, “we return to the farm: ‘tired, but satisfied,’ our guests tell us, and we are happy to share this satisfaction with them.”
Meanwhile, the company is growing, and its goats in a few months will welcome another one hundred and sixty Girgentans arriving from Nicosia, who will enter “service” next Jan. 1.
“I like to say,” Vincenzo Vinti concludes, “that you must never stop believing in your project. Around here, we were a losing bet for many, but we never demoralized, and today I am serene … with a clear mind between heaven and earth.”
Text by Angela Mannino
