January 2025, Year XVII, no. 1
Nicola Brighi
The Untamable Brothers
“It just so happens that goats are the animals we thought were the most similar to us. They are curious and rebellious, difficult to tame.”
Telos: You and your brother Lorenzo have had two different careers. You, the commercial director of the family doors and windows industry, Lorenzo, a jazz musician. Then the pandemic hit... What happened?
Nicola Brighi: What happened was our life changed, like that of many other people. Luckily, ours changed for the better, but not without sacrifice. My brother Lorenzo lived in Bologna and he said that Covid “left him up the creek.”
He didn’t back down and even picked apples in Trentino and worked as a “woofer” (a volunteer for Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms) on an animal farm. While I continued to work for the family door and window business. But then we mustered our courage together and, with the love and respect for our land we developed thanks to our grandfather, we set off on this adventure. Following the advice of our family friend, Paride, who has an important winery, we bought three pregnant goats and let them graze in the fields around our house in Legnanone, near San Leo, Romagna. That is where it all got started, and today our company Il Satiro extends for over 50 hectares in the municipality of Novafeltria. Here, we raise goats, and recently also cows, and make high-quality cheese.
Why goats?
When we started thinking about our project, the first step was to observe Nature. Humbly, almost by looking through the eyes of Nature observing itself. This is the only way to see things clearly, in focus. By observing nature, we realised that our area is particularly suited to raising goats because it is mixed pasture land with lots of bushes. And goats really like woody plants, their leaves and young branches. But also because the goat cheese market is growing thanks to its health benefits, for example, the fact that it is easy to digest and nutritionists increasingly add it to their diets. So there are many reasons why we chose goats. And it just so happens that goats are the animals we thought were the most similar to us. They are curious and rebellious, difficult to tame. They are able to be in a herd but, unlike sheep, they have their own stubborn personality… and are incredibly affectionate, sensitive and intelligent. Goats represent the 'revolutionary', I’d say, drive that moved us to do the project.
Why are pasture lands so important?
Just look at the fleece on our goats and there’s your answer. It’s especially glossy, proof of how healthy these animals are. We raise them on uncultivated pasture land with extraordinary biodiversity, lots of woody plants and flowers, which mainly ensure the goats are healthy and happy. Actually, when they graze, they can choose what they want to eat. The model we have adopted is very simple: the goats feed directly off the ground, which improves their health and that of the land. This way, we have even eliminated the use of antibiotics and improved the nutritional value of our cheese, which is rich in polyphenols, antioxidants and beneficial fatty acids, with an excellent balance between omega-6 and omega-3. We are about 450 metres above sea level and our pastures – permanent, bushy fields – are hilly. In summer, we graze them in the woods, where temperatures are lower, and when resources run out, we feed them hay from permanent pastures that are hundreds of years old on Mount Carpegna, over 1000 metres in altitude. Season after season, the cheeses change based on the different aromatic woody plants the animals feed on. It sounds like an oxymoron, but in a permanent pasture, the cheeses are never the same.
You decided that your company Il Satiro would target the local market. Deciding not to enter the international market goes against the grain. Why did you make that choice?
There are two main reasons. Mainly, we can’t afford it. Running a company from nothing with the features we have just described is not easy. What really helped was winning a tender for young people in agriculture offered by the Emilia Romagna Region, financed with European funds (FEASR), which allowed us to reduce the costs of restoring the goat sheds, which are now almost all automated. But the costs continue to be a worry. Then, exporting also means polluting, and for us environmental sustainability is non-negotiable. On the other hand, there are other ways you can internationalise. For example, by finding ways for our products to enter the hospitality circuit so tourists visiting our country know about them. Through hotels, restaurants and local shops, they would find their natural outlet. We are working on this and trying to promote and allow people to appreciate our product locally. Its value must first be recognised where it is produced. Then, thanks to the hotels, restaurants and local shops, it will find its natural outlet. After all, what do travellers want, what are they always looking for? They want to discover things that are unique, original and wholesome!
Marco Sonsini
Editorial
As soon as the news about the new coronavirus started rolling in, it seemed dangerous and disturbing. However, when we began worrying about it, before it changed life as we had always known it, never would we have imagined that in just a few weeks it would shake the whole world, each of our lives, turning them upside down.
Some people, like Nicola Brighi and his brother Lorenzo, decided they could not emerge from a similar apocalypse and just go back to their former lives, putting what they had experienced in those years – yes, years – behind them. They couldn’t because they didn’t want to let go of the vibrations of the new self they had developed during this long stretch of solitude.
And this inevitably made them question their lives and grasp the great – and let’s admit it, unexpected – fragility of our society, the advanced societies of the advanced West. They decided to take another path, the path of the return to nature, of sustainable development. They changed their lives… to produce cheese! They began raising goats and making cheese, working hard but happily in the Apennine hills of Emilia Romagna. The cheese of their agricultural business Il Satiro evokes authentic flavours and pristine landscapes as well their choice to remain small and focus on high quality products capable of mending the social fabric of small towns, rural areas and villages, keeping them alive while also building a new bridge between the inland and the city. As boys, these two brothers would go to their grandfather’s in the countryside, and that is where it all must have started. Nicola sold his flat in the centre of Rimini and bought a house and their first piece of land in the hills, then came the goat shed and their beloved goats. You will find out why they made this choice in the interview. They started with a specific idea: to do something good for their lives and for the environment and for all the people gravitating around their company. And obviously to make excellent products.
Their wonderful story, the challenges they have had to face, the philosophy nourishing their work, their dedication, it is all spelled out easily and enjoyably in our interview. No hyperbole, no boasting. Though they have a lot to boast about.
I would just like to mention one thing: they were among the first to be selected to take part in the latest, brand new Slow Food project to protect permanent pasture, i.e. fields with only wild vegetation. This is an important project to restore highland areas, regenerate the plains, conserve biodiversity and promote a method of animal husbandry that is good for the climate, the earth, animals and our health. The cheeses produced by the Brighi brothers, like those of the other 30 livestock farmers and cheese makers who are part of the project, safeguarding pastures and feeding their animals grass and hay from permanent pasture, bears the Slow Food logo: cheeses with unique organoleptic and nutritional characteristics! But they haven’t stopped at goats and goat cheese, soon they are also going to start raising prized beef cattle, limousine cattle, and they also dabble in organic EVO oil. So our question is: What have they got in store for us in the future? Seeing as they are so young and on the same wavelength, I think a lot and for a long time.
With Nicola we will be kicking off the new cover graphics for PRIMOPIANOSCALAc. In 2025 we have decided to go back to Telos A&S’s traditional colours: red, black and white. The identity of our guests is revealed partially by their face and partially by a quote from the interview. Their name is written in Abril Fatface, an elegant font inspired by 19th-century European advertising posters. We hope you like it!
Mariella Palazzolo
Nicola Brighi and his brother Lorenzo are the founders of Il Satiro, an agricultural business producing high-quality goat cheese. They make ricotta, fresh goat cheese, even with pepper and elder flowers, soft, bloomy-rind cheese, caciotta cheese made with raw milk aged to varying degrees in a wide variety of ways: in mountain hay, pepper, grape pomace, smoked tea leaves, dried elder flowers… Il Satiro is part of the new Slow Food project to safeguard permanent pastures. After graduating in literature in Bologna, Nicola became the commercial director of the family windows and doors industry and spent seven years spinning around Europe like a top, sealing deals for windows and doors in building projects. He confesses that the first lockdown stopped him in his tracks: “After seven years of running around like a madman, I realised that that life wasn’t me. I had been feeling that for a while, but when you get into the rat race, it’s hard to get out. It took the world being frozen by Covid for me to understand that I could still change. In just four months, I sold the flat I’d bought in Rimini. An unconventional choice with two small children.” With lots of business experience already under his belt, Nicola focussed on administration and sales. His younger brother Lorenzo, an eclectic musician, brings together many different musical styles. He has a degree from the jazz conservatory in Bologna. Currently, he plays in the group Tai paz e i poteri forti, which has performed in different parts of Europe. He tends to the goats, makes sure they get milked daily and oversees the cheese production. He attended Carlo Piccoli’s International Cheesemaking Academy and has travelled all over Italy visiting other goat farmers and cheese makers.
Nicola and Lorenzo were born in Rimini and are respectively 33 and 31 years old.
Marco Sonsini
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