“If someone asks me for a yoghurt, I encourage them to go and pick themselves some raspberries to garnish it. One lady wanted a kilo of apples: she picked them herself. She then told me they were the tastiest she had ever eaten” explains Matteo. In the orchard at Rebecco Farm, there are only old varieties. “The whole area is ideal for fruit growing: the apples here benefit from the considerable temperature differences, and our juices are particularly tasty. Raspberries grow well too: we have plants that have reached a height of 1.8 metres, which never happens in Pertica Alta. From two rows I once harvested a record of 5 kilos in a single day, whereas up there we have twelve rows that produce up to 15 kilos a day. It’s because of the soil, which is very sandy and right by the river”.

At the far end of the property there are also some terraces. Matteo and his father are thinking of clearing them to grow hop there, as part of a joint project with brewery Birrificio Curtense “which already uses our fruit to produce grappa”.

In 2018, at the age of 24, Matteo participated in the ReStartAlp “on campus” course, promoted by Fondazione Edoardo Garrone in cooperation with Fondazione Cariplo. “I learnt about it from a person who works in the Mountain Community. At that time, we were holding the first “shared planning” meetings to start Rebecco Farm. To be honest, I wasn’t so well-qualified – taking part in the campus allowed me to improve and grow considerably, first and foremost because I met 14 other people, each having a different mind-set. I was able to learn something from each and every one of them” he says. Matteo takes us to see the two mountain banana plants that have found a home at Rebecco Farm. “Giovanni (Trapani, the young entrepreneur owner of Cascina Zan Superfood ) had told me about them. This is a rustic plant. It stands there, in a bucket of water with a hole in it that helps the plant get the water it needs. The fruit tastes like banana, vanilla and mango – the flavour of an ice cream that in a few years’ time we will certainly taste at Rebecco Farm.