Giacomo and the Chestnuts of San Zeno

Sometimes a single person carries the story of an entire region. Giacomo is one of them. At 74, he still lives in his family’s small stone house on the slopes of Monte Baldo.

And when you meet him, you realise quickly: this man isn’t just a farmer in the modern sense – he is part of his chestnut groves, just as the trees are part of his own story.

“Every tree here is like a friend,” he says, tapping the bark with his stick.

And he means it. He knows them all – their moods, their good years, their tired years.

As a boy, he followed his father through these hills. Back then, nothing was mechanised.

Donkeys carried the heavy baskets of chestnuts, step by step, along the narrow mulini paths.

He remembers the evenings when the whole village gathered around the fire, roasting the harvest and singing old songs. Chestnut flour wasn’t a luxury – it was survival.

It fed families, but more than that, it connected people to their land and to each other.

But Giacomo isn’t only looking back.

In the 1990s, he was among the founders of the Associazione del Marrone di San Zeno.

Their mission: to keep the chestnut tradition alive, not as folklore but as living culture. In 2003, the Marrone di San Zeno earned the DOP recognition – proof that centuries of work and knowledge deserved protection.

Today, when Giacomo knocks the spiky husks from the branches, a faint smile crosses his face. It’s routine, yes – but it’s also legacy.

On the local markets, people recognise him immediately. They nod, they smile, they know: this is someone who carries more than fruit.

For Giacomo, chestnuts are not a business. They are memory, identity, and future – all at once.