THIS LIFE - Sofia Di Ciacca Tana

We caught up with the Scots-Italian family who have turned a tiny hamlet in Lazio into a destination for food and wine lovers

- Gillian Welsh

Italy has had a huge influence on Scotland’s eating habits. After the First World War, thousands of impoverished Italians emigrated in search of a more prosperous life. They found it in Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh and across the whole country, wherever they opened fish and chip shops and ice-cream parlours.

This is the story of I Ciacca, a hamlet near the town of Picinisco, halfway between Rome and Naples, where the same well-worn path has been taken – only this time in reverse. A Scottish family, albeit one with Italian roots, have set up a vineyard, winery, farm and boutique hotel there. Sofia Di Ciacca Tana, who runs the business along with her mum, dad and brother, explains that getting involved in this remote mountain-top hamlet stems from more than just ancestry. “Nostalgia, passion and madness all played big parts,” she says with a smile.

Her grandfather, Johnny, was born in I Ciacca in 1919 and spent the first few years of his life on a farm there before his family joined the exodus to Scotland. The farm was eventually abandoned in the 1950s after the last of his kinsfolk departed. Then, almost 100 years after young Johnny made the long trek to Britain, his son Cesidio, Sofia’s dad, returned to Italy to revive his ancestors’ 500-year-old hamlet and the nearby village. Cesidio is one of eight siblings (he’s the older brother of Edinburgh restaurateurs Carina and Mary Contini) who grew up above the family ice-cream shop in Cockenzie, hearing the stories of the little hamlet in Lazio. Mary has even written two books about it, Dear Francesca and Dear Olivia.