From stamps to bees, passing through wine. Thirty years ago Hubert Ciacci was an ‘anonymous’ Post Office employee: with a steady job, that is true, a guaranteed pension and a quiet life. He gave a kick to all this and was away, starting over again. His father’s hives were there, two steps away from home in Montalcino, but he had never noticed them that much: it was the family business (the grandfather Agostino was the founder) but for him his job was at the Post Office. His was a regular life, depending on a work card to be stamped every day. One day the ‘singing’ of the queen bee rang in his ears until it became a fixed idea. From there the decision: give up everything and go back to bees. Thirty years have passed and today Hubert is one of the greatest italian experts on beekeeping, president of the Association of Beekeepers of Siena, Arezzo and Grosseto, “signore dell’oro giallo” (“the Lord of the yellow gold”) of Montalcino and a great supporter of the “Week of Honey (in September)”.
His father Valerio was a pioneer in this area: “He was a bricklayer, then he realized that bees could become his first business”, says Hubert while he ‘caresses’ the glass hives where his army ‘marches’ whirling: 20 million bees divided into 400 hives. ‘Traveling’ bees as he calls them, he moves them from season to season, between spring and autumn: from Amiata Hill up to Liguria, Umbria and Lazio. “I practice roving beekeeping which allows me to get fourteen types of honey. My bees travel on a special truck that I built for that purpose. From heather in March to arbutus in October, the bees work and oversee the area”. And when you ask “but what made you do it? You had your job at the Post Office …”, he smiles and answers dryly: “It was a conscious decision, I wanted to return to a direct relationship with nature. This is a job you do for yourself alone, just you and the bees: strong emotions, every day never the same. I take care of them personally, as if they were so many sons, and they repay me with so much sacrifice. The honey and the products derived from this allow me to live well and in peace with the world …”. Not just honey, Hubert has ‘invented’ even grappa and brandy from honey. Even the melata honey, from buds of poplar, fir, pine, or honey with truffles, to name the most specific types. Hubert’s passion has also become politics; he defends like a gladiator the quality of Italian honey threatened by imports of low-quality products, coming even from China. The paradox, all Italian, is that 50 percent of honey is imported from abroad, while abroad Italian honey is in great demand. Conferences, the general States of honey, tastings, training courses for keeping the know-how, to pass on knowledge and an ancient craft. Hubert races from one end to the other of the country, but without losing sight of his four hundred hives, built one by one by himself.
Villa Cipressi is his headquarters, laboratory-family business, and in 1998 he decided to invest in wine, Brunello of course. “It was the year when the Register of Brunello was reopened, when with the disposal of some abandoned vineyards, and according to the strict code that protects the production, it was permitted for those who wished, to start a business on a few abandoned hectares”, he says walking between the rows while his Brunello is aged in French oak barrels in the cellar. “Here we take care of the plants as if they were children, with dedication and continuing care. Each wine is different because every hectare of land is different”. Japan, China, Brazil, South Korea are the ‘conquered’ lands. Hubert has shared the keys of the business with his sons Dario and Federico for a long time. Both graduated in Oenology, Agriculture and Viticulture, after which, Hubert started a business with them. Each one with his own specific task: “Rules and responsibilities are the family motto. Federico is a great wine enthusiast. Wine is his kingdom, no one enters the cellar. He is also a member of the Regional Commission for the allocation of DOC and DOCG, where they have called him very young for someone to have his preparation and his sense of smell; so much so that they call him ‘il ragazzino’ (‘the young boy’). Dario instead, deals more specifically with marketing and the commercial sector, traveling the world presenting our products”, he says with the pride of a father who sees his sons grow up like his father Valerio reared him, honey and bees. First, the bees: his great passion. “You create wine from the vineyard to the cellar, honey instead is created by the care of each flower. The bee gives you an income without the need to kill her. Once we used sulfur, but my dad invented a system of extraction that saved the bees, and since then we continued this way. If you breed calves then you have to kill them, and since I have a very deep relationship with nature and animals, I am dedicated to beekeeping”. Thirty years of working with bees are enough to understand and to know all about them: “I understand if they are doing well or is there something wrong with the hum they do when I open the hive”. Wine and honey… social network: Hubert is amongst the first in Italy to open a window on the world. “Communicate what you do and how you do it, allows you to have a direct relationship with people, who then come to visit the farm to see and to taste our products. I use Social network also to receive orders and to discuss with all those who ask me about my business. It’s a powerful tool, I would say indispensable, for a business owner if it is used intelligently. The truth and the quality of what you do are the final reckoning, especially on the Web and in the internet world: one false step and you are cut out, partly because now the customer is a conscious and demanding consumer, who understands, who wants to understand. I do not know how many e-mails I receive every day from all over the world … it’s nice to talk about my bees and Brunello on Facebook, Internet, Instagram, I post photos and explanations: an effective and direct way to avoid the loss of knowledge, to pass on a craft, unfortunately still little practiced, especially by young people, but with a huge potential for those who seek satisfaction in the relationship with nature, and the ability to do a job that allows you to live well”. Hubert’s face now becomes alert, suddenly changes expression. Opening the last hive he hears a different buzz. A moment listening and then his eyes return clear: “It’s a kind of crying: it happens when the old queen bee dies and the new is not yet born”. Pure poetry…