Memory of Marcello Crini

With Luciano there was no need for many words. A handshake was enough

Marcello Crini is a true Tuscan and developed a straightforward relationship with Luciano. At least thirty years of sharing and esteem. He came from hotel school, even though as a young man catering felt a little constraining. He preferred to think big, to have broad horizons. By an irony of fate, he ended up working for almost 15 years, between 1982 and 1995, at the Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura. But that work was the launching pad for other flights of fancy.
But the restaurant business was in his heart and his destiny. So, while working at the bank, he opened a small establishment in Mercatale Val di Pesa. In the morning he was a banker, in the afternoon and evening an innkeeper. Fortunate that fate decreed it so. Otherwise, who knows if he would ever have met Luciano…

That small establishment in Mercatale was his gymnasium, where he broadened his passion for food and wine and his desire to know. There he met many figures. Including Gino Veronelli and Daniel Thomases, with whom he made friends. At the Barrino in Florence he had also met Gino Paoli and Cesare Giaccone. And in 1988 he had also met Luciano.
Month by month, that restaurant in Mercatale became the tasting and meeting place for many oenologists of the territory: there were the wines that people liked and excellent gastronomic products.
But let us talk about the memories that still bind Marcello to Luciano…
"Before meeting Luciano, frequenting Langa, – Marcello begins – I often strayed. I would lose myself in that so complex world. The person who introduced me to that reality was Gian Bovio, a restaurateur of great renown in La Morra. It was the early Nineties and from that moment Langa held no more secrets for me".
And how did things go when you met Luciano?
"Initially – he specifies – we were not particularly involved with each other. He had two jobs and so did I and I could not always come to Langa when I wanted. The real meeting with Luciano happened in the mid-Nineties thanks to his extraordinary Barolo 1989 and 1990".
What do you remember about that period?
"Above all I remember his house garage. Little by little it became the meeting point, even at impossible hours. He had little production, but I always managed to have a special reservation. When Luciano then got the cover of The Wine Spectator, it became more difficult to obtain an allocation of his wines. The diktat was: up to 12 bottles is fine. More than that, no. I tried to push my luck and load up the car, but, behind me, Mariuccia – his wife – would unload it… It was a game that repeated itself every time. Between us there was always a relationship of great esteem and appreciation".
What was Luciano like as a person?
"Luciano came like me – Marcello emphasises – from a farming family and like me had two jobs. His dynamism and his eclectic character always fascinated me. Thanks to his spontaneous and constructive attitude, we got in tune. There was no need for many words or written agreements. A handshake was enough and everything was in order".
What was Luciano like as a producer?
"He was very serious. He knew his vineyard and followed it over the years. He was very tied to the territory and reliable and consistent in his choices. He never looked for shortcuts or fashionable attitudes. He made his choices with discernment, weighing up the consequences. For this reason his intuitions, his projects and his work have given positive contributions to the territory, stimulating other producers to seek the quality of Barolo and to enhance its origin".