Caps, Heels and Miracles

I know Maddalena Mazzeschi for at least 40 years. She was a true pioneer in the wine world. She started in p.r. and marketing when there were very few women working in the wine industry in Italy. A lot has fortunately changed since then, but in the days when Maddalena started it was really hard for them.

I forgot, Magdalene is also a lay nun, consecrated to Jesus Christ, and, nevertheless, she manages to be witty, ironic and brilliant. A surprising thing for an old layman like yours truly, who evidently knows little about that world.

Why am I telling you all this? Because Magdalena wrote a book entitled. Caps, Heels and Miracles (Tappi, Tacchi e Miracoli), telling the “behind-the-scenes” story of his professional history. It is not War and Peace by Tolstoy, nor The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway, however, it is simply and engagingly written, so much so that I read it in an afternoon without being able to stop myself.

Short chapters, entertaining stories: a real little insight into the world of wine seen by a person, a woman moreover, who had to deal with an environment that was initially skeptical, if not hostile, toward her. She does not name the people she met, but in one of the chapters the allusion to yours truly-at least to me-is obvious. It is when he relates that a journalist claimed that early in her career she was blond and wore a miniskirt. She replied that she had streaks, yes, but that the skirt was at least an inch below the knee, which for someone like her was equivalent to a vertiginous miniskirt brought by one of her peers at the time, which was very common in those years. Of course, the reporter was me, and to gently tease her (I don’t want to antagonize her or Jesus Christ) I keep repeating that thing.

That said, that book, published by Giraldi and costing 18 euros, is simply delightful. Brava Maddalena!