Wine and history in the chess game of the I Dof Mati winery in Novara

"A challenge, a life choice, all-encompassing. Where fatigue and daily efforts are repaid by the beauty of nature, the results you manage to achieve and the quality of the products'. This is how Sara Paladini sums up the winemaking adventure that began in 2016 together with Valentina Cometto with the creation of the winery I Dof Mati (the two girls, in Novara dialect), which she has been running alone since 2022.

It all started almost by chance, with the attention attracted by the announcement of the sale of a 6,000 square metre plot of land 'where there were only brushwood and brambles, we planted Nebbiolo', the main grape variety of Piedmont, from which Ghemme is made in the area: an important wine, for ageing. Slowly the structure grew, the Dof Mati rented a vineyard cultivated with Merlot and then added other plots of vines cultivated with Vespolina and Colline Novaresi white. "Now the company can count on five hectares and has a production of about 20,000 bottles a year".

With the first signs of growth, in 2019, I Dof Mati acquired an old winery in Fara Novarese, 'also in a state of semi-abandonment since 2009,' explains Paladini, 'in which, therefore, it was necessary to carry out various recovery and restoration works in various areas: from the tasting room to the steel container rooms, to those where the wooden barrels and barriques are located. Inside the Fara Novarese winery, Sara Paladini has also recovered an ancient vineyard planted by Alessandro Antonelli, the architect who designed and built, among other works, the Mole Antonelliana in Turin and the Dome of San Gaudenzio in Novara. "It is now cultivated with Nebbiolo: this year we harvested a first part and in two years' time we will be able to market this particular clos," Paladini reveals, using the particular term used in Burgundy to refer to small, delimited, high quality productions.

I Dof Mati has chosen symbols derived from the world of chess to identify the different types of wine, symbols accompanied by particular names: the Ghemme is marked on the label by the king and the name Il Matto (The Fool); the Colline Novaresi white is identified with the bishop and called Eresia (a white in a land of reds); the queen characterises the bottles of Vespolina, called Bona. "Behind each wine there is a fascinating story," Sara Paladini explains. "The vineyards are on the border between Ghemme and Sizzano, where the Savoy and Sforza families once fought, until the peace was sealed through the marriage of Bona di Savoia and Galeazzo Maria Sforza.

The chess pieces refer to the analogies between the game and being a winegrower: 'You are always forced to think about the next move of nature, of the weather, to constantly evaluate countless variables. It is hard work, especially at the beginning, with no experience and no tradition behind you. I was forced to learn patience, I who by character am not very good at it: for the first vintage of Ghemme it took five years,' recalls Paladini. 'When you talk to customers, they often ask you about the grape harvest, but that is only one of the pieces: first there are nine months of work. Learning to make wine was an all-embracing choice, a radical life change for which mental toughness was and is needed, but the reward for the hard work and daily challenges is the spectacle of this land every morning, whatever the season".