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Put Some Altitude in Your Glass
43: Italian Heritage Wines
Sep 15, 2022
43: Italian Heritage Wines
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
0:00
[upbeat music] You're listening to Denver Wine Radio, the podcast about Colorado wine. My name is Paul Bonaccosti.
0:10
I'm the winemaker at Bonaccosti Wine Company, an urban winery I launched back in 2006 in Denver, Colorado, where I've been making and learning about wine ever since.
0:20
I'm sitting down with other wineries and wine experts to find out what makes Colorado wine so unique, and to help you find the wines you like to drink. And now, let's put some altitude in your glass.
0:33
Welcome, everybody, to Denver Wine Radio.
0:36
We have very special guests in the studio today, as Italian Heritage Month is coming up in October, and it is a big deal here in Colorado because Governor Polis every year puts out a proclamation for Italian Heritage Month, and we'll talk about that in a little bit.
0:53
But my guests are Susan Gutule and Alisa DiGiacomo. Susan, you're from the Dante Alighieri Society of Denver, and Alisa, you're from History Colorado. Correct. And what's your, what's your title exactly?
1:05
I'm the director of curatorial services and the senior curator at History Colorado. Wow. Welcome to Denver Wine Radio. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us.
1:14
Yeah, so we're gonna talk things Italian today, and not just Italian in general, but specifically to Colorado, and we can even get into how the Italian heritage here on the north side. Where do we begin?
1:26
Well, I suppose historically is where we would begin. So people sometimes are unaware how early Italians are settling in Colorado.
1:33
It really begins in the 1850s, and we have so much as far as contributions and impact on the history and cultural heritage of our state, way beyond, I think, what people traditionally think of.
1:46
But just to start with, of course, with railroads, with mining, with businesses, oftentimes what happens, Italians come early from the north.
1:54
It's not just southern Italians, and they're doing a lot of the business side of it, but more southern Italians come and work in railroads and mining. They earn capital.
2:04
They move into agriculture and other businesses in the state. And also cultural, even up to the present, if we think of the Colorado Ballet, Lillian Cavillo had a huge part in that.
2:15
So men, women, there's a variety of Italians in the state, and their impact, as I said, has been phenomenal. Yeah, and for me, growing up in an Italian American household, of course, my grandfather, uh, emigrated here.
2:26
He came to the United States in 1900, then made his way to Colorado in 1905 and was a coal miner down near Trinidad in Delawa, Colorado. Mm-hmm.
2:34
So to me, the history is very much so mining, [chuckles] but I know there's lots of aspects to it, and I know that produce is alway- Those are the two things that pop into my mind. [chuckles] Yeah, that's similar for me.
2:47
I'm a fifth-generation Italian American, and my beginnings in Colorado are actually in Como, Colorado. Come for- Ah... again, mining. Yeah. And then it does progress usually as more capital.
2:58
You get out of those labor industries and begin to have gardening, truck farming, and again, that's across the state, but not just in that area. There's small businesses, of course peddlers.
3:09
I love talking about peddlers and produce, but yes. Susan, do you wanna add for your family? Yes, I do. My, my great-grandfather came through in 1911 from Sicily.
3:18
With him came my grandfather, who was 11 years old, and both of them worked in the mines. My grandfather started at 15 in the mines and retired after about 60 years in the mines. Wow.
3:29
My, my dad used to tell me, 44 years my grandfather worked in the mines and never one day off, never, you know, [chuckles] any, any paid vacation, nothing like that.
3:39
So he was always very appreciative of what, what we had at the time and what he was building, so.
3:44
I feel like that's a perfect segue for Italian American Heritage Month, and really so much of what it's about, and I know I can tell already the three of us that a lot of it really does have to do with being grateful for where we come from, and that hard work ethic as well as wanting to prosper in a variety of ways, give back to the community, take care of your family.
4:04
Something tells me if we had that conversation that, you know, you really had to think about family where you came from, the area of Italy that you came from, but also being part of community and prospering so.
4:16
You know, years ago I was touring at the museum at Ellis Island and was specifically looking for things that were Italian and related to Colorado, and I found two that were specific to Colorado, and one was a vegetable peddler out of Pueblo, Colorado, and the other was Mother Jones marching on the Capitol, you know, protesting about mining conditions.
4:35
A few years ago, there was a big exhibit do- I know down in Pueblo. I, I think it toured around, and it, it was specifically about mining and the Ludlow massacre. Right.
4:45
So we've actually done quite a bit at History Colorado. We work with communities, and a- actually have for a very long time.
4:51
After 143 years in the state, our presence is really that historical record of communities, and so I've been with History Colorado since 1999, and as a curator, one of the communities that I noticed that was underrepresented in our community was the Italian American community.
5:07
So we did a large documentation project across the state, and people were incredibly generous, which resulted in an exhibit in the book Italy in Colorado, and also there have been spinoff projects like Ludlow showing really labor and union relations.
5:23
And I think what I have come to learn is that there's so much complexity. People are unaware that even in 1920, Colorado's population, 22% of the population was Italian or Italian descendant. Wow.
5:35
So when you think about that, that's big, and even today, 5% is pretty significant of people who claim Italian American ancestry.
5:43
So that documentation project now is part of the official historical record, and we have really probably next to New York and Chicago the largest research archive on Italian Americans in the state and in the West, which is pretty significant.
5:57
So if, if somebody wants to learn about their Italian American heritage, they can pop down to the museum or go online and start researching. Both places. Okay. So you can visit the research center.
6:10
You can reach out for help. One thing I like to remind people of, it's okay that you don't know. You just need to be curious about your family history, and we can help you with that.
6:18
But you can also look online for the research archive, and go to the History Colorado website and begin exploring.
6:26
The winery is here on the north side, and so I get lots of, a lot of people that come in and they talk about the past here in North Denver, and all the things Italian going back in the day.
6:38
So as the Italian-American community moved out of the neighborhood, it's still a very fond place for them to come back and go to events like the Mount Carmel Festival and the Feast of Saint Rocco.
6:50
That was just this past weekend. Mm-hmm. Yeah, for people who might not be aware, Colorado's biggest enclaves are what we call Little Italys in the state. We're in Denver, Trinidad, and Pueblo.
7:00
Although really, again, Italians are settling across Colorado, but those are the three biggest enclaves.
7:07
And I think it's important for people to consider that that physical place, in many ways, is gone in all of those communities. There's still a presence, but we are united really by our heritage on a number of levels.
7:19
So I, I love it when people wanna talk about where they came from or what their experience was.
7:24
You know, I grew up in Trinidad, and I would come to spend summers with my aunt and uncle on Osage Street directly behind Mount Carmel Church. So I learned to love the sound of the church bells- Mm... for one thing.
7:34
But during the procession prior to the festival, everybody in the neighborhood would bring their chairs out, and they'd be sitting on the front lawn as they watched that procession go by. So there's beautiful memories.
7:45
Beautiful traditions that still exist- Yeah... for sure. And a, and a lot of people came out.
7:49
We went Friday night to the Feast of Saint Rocco at Potenza Lodge, and lots of familiar faces, and it, it's great to see them even if it's only that once a year or maybe a couple times around, but- It's like a little reunion.
8:00
A little reunion, yeah. [laughs] Well, your book, you started this whole thing 20 years ago, right? Called it The Italians of Colorado Project. Yeah. But because we had such a great response- Mm-hmm...
8:11
we ended up focusing more on those bigger enclaves. We still looked at, like, Silver Plume or even Canyon City, but those are the main enclaves.
8:20
And I always remind people that we had limitations for the book and the exhibit, but the research archive has thousands of files. We have more than... well, almost 300 oral histories. We scanned almost 8,000 photographs.
8:32
People gave artifacts including, for example, when I say Cerroni's Market, we have Audie and Mildred Cerroni's butcher block from the market. We have Soppressata presses. Yeah.
8:42
We have a lot of things that unite us through food, but also culture and the reality of discrimination, or why people changed their names, or why Colorado actually had an active effort to have Italians stop speaking Italian.
8:58
So again, we can't cover it all today, but the documentation project is really built by the community for the community, but not just for Italians.
9:06
Because really, the impact of Italians in agriculture and mining and businesses and a variety of things on the state, we still feel that today.
9:15
So you don't have to just be Italian to understand and appreciate that, including what happened to this community, which was this division of the Valley Highway.
9:23
So a lot of what ended up changing the landscape was, when we talk about those enclaves, was World War II and the GI Bill. People had more resources to move out of their neighborhoods.
9:32
But in Colorado, in Denver specifically, that Valley Highway project really changed the landscape. I've read about the- The River Bottoms... the River Bottom and the Italian community there, and- You'd move on up.
9:44
[laughs] That's right. But then now-- then once the, the highway went through, that just splits, it splits everything up.
9:51
And same thing here with I-70 when, when I-70 came in and it divided the neighborhood here going north. [laughs] So.
9:58
Well, you'll get me started on all kinds of stories, but one story I researched recently was American Beauty because that's something that has come up over and over and over.
10:05
And even when I did research on the Denargo Market, like, really looking at the history of it, the Veneno family was super interesting, and they're a great example of that.
10:14
They originally started their macaroni company, and they originally had it in the River Bottoms area, the Bottoms area near downtown.
10:23
And so when the highway went in, that moved, and they moved their plant to North Denver, which is interesting. And then really not far from here is where they had their bigger plant expanded.
10:34
So that building is still there, and the company is still around, and that's a significant contribution, where I think of this immigrant family, who their youngest son ends up going to Harvard Business School.
10:44
And they were brilliant as far as marketing and how they got the word out about their product. So yeah, there's just story after story like that. Yeah.
10:52
There's several other businesses that were or- originally established by immigrant Italians, and they are nationally known, and some of them, some more of those have Colorado ties. Yeah, the list is very long. Yeah.
11:03
You can go on from, like, the Ford, uh, dealership. You look at Loprino Foods. You can look at Mile High Frozen Foods. You-- Gary Cuccaroola's Mrs. Conde's Salad. I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
11:15
I mentioned Lillian Cavillo. There's Genevieve Fiori, who helped found Colorado's UNESCO chapter.
11:21
I also like to balance that with how many working class families contributed in their own way, from peddlers to street sweepers to stone masons to miners. Again, just such an appreciation for that.
11:32
These stories, are they, are they in your book? 'Cause you've written several books. Well, the main book for family histories in Colorado is Italy in Colorado.
11:39
But yes, there's other articles I've done on the Denargo Market, and Andiamo is a great resource for the community, Colorado's Italian-American newspaper. And on a, on a side note, Gary, he sold...
11:51
the business is gone, and he sold the property. That's just happened with- He did?... within the last year. Oh. Yeah. So which is very sad, but, um- That's very sad. The last real strong holdout from the Denargo.
12:01
Yeah, definitely. [laughs] Good for him. Uh, in fact, he called me just a couple of weeks ago to let me know. I had, I had already heard, but he let me know, 'cause he would bring in a big grape order every year.
12:11
That's where I got my grapes from. Ex- yeah. [laughs][upbeat music] All right, let's talk about Italian Heritage Month. All right. Got a lot of stuff going on. Yes.
12:29
The Dante Alighieri Society has put together 10 activities for this year. This is our fourth year of doing this, and we even functioned during COVID. Thank you for Zoom.
12:39
So starting out on October 1st, we have the Celebrazione Italiana, which is going to take place here at Bonacorsi Winery. All right.
12:47
Uh, the Four Amici's will be playing with Mark Girritano on vocals and Sal Martorano on the sax. And then reservations are required for that. You can just check on dantealighieriofdenv- er.com to get information.
13:01
On the 7th, we have a presentation on Dante Alighieri by Dr. Seth Fabean. We didn't feel if our organization was sponsoring all these Italian events, that it would be important to have somebody who's our namesake.
13:12
[laughs] On October 8th, we have, uh, Piazza Italiana, and that's gonna be held at the Sons of Italy Hall. What we're trying to do is recreate a piazza in Italy.
13:24
So we'll have gelato, we'll have demonstrations in bocce and morra. A big backdrop with an Italian landscape so people can have their picture there. Possibly a lady selling her Italian landscape paintings.
13:36
Musical entertainment. So it'll be a, a fun day. We have a wonderful character artist who's gonna be doing characters. Morra is a fun game. [laughs] Sure is. For those that don't know, it is a numbers game.
13:47
You play with your hand. And your opponent throws a number, but you call out the number that you think he's gonna throw that'll add up all the fingers together. So it, [laughs] it's a lot of fun and loud.
13:57
And a transplanted tradition, and we have the Morra Society here that also has- Yes... a great tournament and events, and again, another great way to be involved. Celebrate.
14:07
And that demonstration will be happening far away from where the musical entertainment is. [laughs] [laughs] What is the purpose of the Dante Alighieri Society? Our main goal is- And how long has it been around and...?
14:18
It's been around since 1985. We are a nonprofit. Our basic mission is to preserve the Italian culture. We do offer scholarships to students who are enrolled in programs in Italy.
14:31
We offer Italian language lessons, and then we have monthly meetings to... cultural meetings, which talk about different things Italian. Nice. So- I have to put a plug in.
14:40
The Dante is one of many organizations in Colorado that does a phenomenal job of really keeping our community involved and engaged and learning. I'm taking Italian through The Dante.
14:50
So there's lots of ways to get involved and celebrate and participate in our Italian American heritage. And of course, there's fundraising.
14:57
You do fundraising throughout the year, and as part of this, uh, some of these fundraising events? Some of them are fundraising. Basically, the Italian Heritage Month was never intended to be a fundraising event.
15:07
It's basically just get the information out, get people to participate in any way possible. What else do we have coming up? We got a, there's a, a month worth of festivities here.
15:16
Well, one of the things that most people, or a lot of people are interested in, it will happen on October 14th at the Mount Carmel Parish Hall at 7:30, and it's a presentation on dual citizenship.
15:28
We have Paula Coffey, who has written the book on Italian Citizenship for Dummies, and Joe Morrow, both of whom have been through the process, so they know the ropes and, and how to get through that.
15:38
So I think that'll be of interest to a lot of folks. And of course, we have two cooking classes. Chef Adam Giardino puts together wonderful menus. These things sell out instantly.
15:48
So last year we had one that was wait-listed, and then we had another wait list on top of that, because they are popular. And it's all Italian. This is wonderful.
15:58
And then I see some film Italiano here coming up at the end of October? Correct. Always have one film with popcorn and beverages. All right. And that's gonna be held at, uh, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish Hall.
16:09
Another fun thing that might be interesting is on October 21st, we have, uh, lessons in tombola, which is bingo Italian-style.
16:16
So we'll have pizza beforehand, and that is a free event, and then followed by tombola with prizes. I love it. So we'll post a link in the show notes here on these events.
16:27
And of course, the kickoff here on October 1st at the winery, at Bonacorsi Wine Company. Looking really forward to that so that you can get your tickets.
16:35
But to go just in general, they would find this information at dantealighieriofdenv- er.com. Also, I'll, I'll add that Dante is part of a, an international organization.
16:46
One of the things that we're most proud of and happy to offer on the 16th is a concert featuring a pianist from Matera, Italy. We'll be broadcasting that, and in addition to her, it's her mother, Paola.
16:59
They'll be doing di- dueling pianos, and then Davide Oliveri is on the violoncello. So that'll be a fun thing.
17:06
Again, we just wanna encourage people to celebrate and find gratitude for and be curious about where they come from and their impact now.
17:15
And again, a shout-out to all of the Italian American organizations and individuals really working to keep our rich heritage alive and well, and we welcome participation and questions.
17:28
You can reach out to History Colorado if you have questions about research. Again, there's, there's just so much available, and really, we encourage people to get involved and be active and come and celebrate with us.
17:40
Couple of things, though, and, and I know this isn't a, a show to promote anything, but there are so many ways to, to get your taste of Italy and learn more about it.
17:48
I know Canyon City puts on a wonderful festival every year. Louisville just put on another festival. And there are numerous organizations, uh, Sons and Daughters of Italy.
17:57
I mean, if Dante isn't your thing, they have bocce tournaments. They have leagues. Italian and American Business Association is a nice networking organization for Italians. And Potenza.
18:09
There's just a number of Italian organizations in town, so... And, and of course, Andiamo Newspaper is a wonderful way to keep in touch. And don't forget about our agriculture business from, you know, Musso Farms.
18:21
There are so many places that you can go and support.
18:25
And maybe if organization's not your thing and you really are a foodie, there's so much available, and I think sometimes people don't realize how fortunate we are in Colorado to have the strong Italian American community that we do have.
18:36
There's a couple of wonderful farms out in Brighton. Farmers markets are very popular, and I go up to Brighton to the farms there. Yeah, Polizzi Farms and Petrarca Farms.
18:47
[laughs] Yeah, they've, they've been around for generations now, so... In fact, then, I grew up in Brighton, so very familiar with all, all the agriculture there. And a shout-out to Welby, Welby Heritage Foundation. Yes.
18:57
They have a lot going on. We're looking at each other like, "We have to get everybody in."
19:01
Whoever we're forgetting, uh, we apologize, but you can send us a note, reply back here via email or voice message at denverwineradio.com. We'd love to hear from you and love to hear your Italian stories.
19:12
And thank you so much- Thank you... Susan and Alicia, for coming down today. Thank you. [upbeat music] That's our show for this week. Thank you so much for listening to Denver Wine Radio.
19:22
Your homework for the week is to go out and taste some Colorado wine.
19:27
If you have any questions or comments, or just wanna let us know what you're drinking, go to denverwineradio.com, where you can email us or leave us a voice message. We'd love to hear from you.
19:38
And remember, put some altitude in your glass.
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