March 24, 2011
We woke early at Casa Brina and had a simple breakfast in the main house dining room over looking the valley below. The table was made up of coffee, juice, toast, cheese, and marmalades including Mr. Bava's delicious muscat jelly. We all liked it so much that Darrell decided to import a bunch, so look for it in a Corti Brother's Newsletter soon! We enjoyed our stay with the Bava family very much. When in the town of Cocconato, you get the perfect feel of Italy.
We left Casa Brina and said goodbye to Cocconato around 9 am. Our next stop was the town of Lessona in the pre-Alps. The drive was due north and took about an hour and a half. Lessona sits at 1000' elevation with the south face of the snow covered Alps in clear sight. We made the trip to Lessona to visit ProprietĂ Sperino, the revived family estate of Paolo di Marchi who owns Isole e Olena in Tuscany.
After our visit to Lessona, Darrell decided that we should go eat lunch at the Ristorante Pinocchio in the town of Borgomanero. It was about a 45 minute drive to the northeast very close to the Italian Alpine lakes area in the region of Lombardia. Ristorante Pinocchio has been operating since 1962 by the Bertinotti family.
Lunch was just as we expected it would be...delicious! Our next stop was a visit to Longo un Mondo di SpecialitĂ Srl in the town of San Giorgio su Legnano which was an hour drive away. San Giorgio su Legnano sits half way between the Milano Malpensa airport and the city of Milano. Longo un Mondo di SpecialitĂ Srl is an international corporate gift company which procures high quality food, beverage, and other items to incorporate into custom made gift packages for their clients. They also make the Bardi Panettone and Pandoro which Corti Brothers exclusively imports. The Longo family are good friends on Darrell's. We were greeted by Giovanni Longo and given a tour of their facilities.
After the tour, Giovanni took us into the center of Legnano to see their retail shop. His sister Monica runs the shop and showed us around. We stopped into a local tavern where we all shared cocktails after our visit to the Longo Enoteca.
Giovanni drove us to a hotel in Legnano , which he highly recommended . We checked in for the night to get a good night's sleep after our very busy day.