1) COUNTERFEIT DESIGNER FACE MASKS
2) TO STOP THE VIRUS, REMOVES BENCHES FROM MAIN SQUARE
3) TEN THOUSAND BOTTLES UNDER THE SEA
4) WINE IN AN HOUR, THE CHALLENGE TO AMAZON
5) GOVERNMENT SELLS FOR 10 TO PAY 18 IN RENT FOR THE SAME BUILDING
6) FROM PATAGONIA TO PISTOIA SEARCHING FOR HER ROOTS

BACKGROUND MUSIC
Title: Summercycle
Author: Wayne John Bradley
License: Creative Commons Attribution
Link: https://soundcloud.com/ayneohnradley/summercycle-original-indie-style-instrumental-creative-commons

LINKS TO ARTICLES
http://www.notiziediprato.it/news/scoperta-filiera-del-falso-con-le-mascherine-griffate-uno-dei-grossisti-era-a-prato
https://firenze.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/02/26/news/pisa_fabbrica_mascherine_fuorilegge-289305765/?rss
https://firenze.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/02/25/news/quarrata_pistoia_panchine_levate_piazza_sindaco_marco_mazzanti-289189091/?rss
https://iltirreno.gelocal.it/grosseto/cronaca/2021/02/26/news/diecimila-bottiglie-sotto-i-mari-all-argentario-una-cantina-da-record-1.39956864
https://iltirreno.gelocal.it/empoli/cronaca/2021/02/26/news/viniferi-piu-veloce-di-amazon-da-empoli-la-sfida-del-vino-a-domicilio-in-un-ora-1.39956691
https://iltirreno.gelocal.it/grosseto/cronaca/2021/02/19/news/gli-affari-dello-stato-vende-per-10-milioni-e-da-inquilino-finira-a-pagarne-17-di-affitto-1.39927428
https://iltirreno.gelocal.it/pistoia/2021/02/20/news/27-anni-e-un-sogno-ritrovare-la-mia-famiglia-cosi-catalina-dalla-patagonia-cerca-le-sue-radici-pistoiesi-1.39933245

SCRIPT
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be, however you might be listening, welcome to another episode of What’s Up Tuscany, the daily podcast from L’Arno where you will find the most interesting news coming from this extraordinary region. As every weekend, this episode will be slightly different, longer than usual and with all the stories we weren’t able to cover during the week. We hope you like this format - let us know your thoughts in the comments here below.

Let’s start now with a story we read on several websites, including La Repubblica, yesterday afternoon, a story that shows how certain Italians have a unique talent for fraud. During a routine search in a small dressmaker’s in Valdera, the Guardia di Finanza uncovered a vaste chain of counterfeit fashion products. Given the times we’re living, rather than clothes, the factory produced fake facemasks, using some of the most famous fashion brands. The cloth face masks branded Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Gucci and Chanel were distributed across Italy, produced using counterfeit cloth sourced in Lombardy. Almost half a million masks were seized by the police. Looking at the archive, investigators discovered that, during the first lockdown, when face masks were almost impossible to find, the factory produced generic masks, making them pass for medical devices. Some public authorities bought those masks, which generated 300000 Euros in profit for the forgers. With or without a pandemic, this industry always finds a way to make money. Who cares if someone might get sick using those masks...

Let’s talk again about the pandemic with a story we found a couple days ago on La Repubblica. Thursday morning the people of Quarrata, a small town near Pistoia, were startled when some workers started removing the thirteen benches in the main square. The move was authorized by the Mayor Marco Mazzanti to fight the spread of the virus. If the raise in people self-isolating is common knowledge, the mayor was fed up to see groups of senior citizens that spent hours around the benches, sometimes not wearing face masks. As soon as the municipal police tried to stop them, they briefly dispersed, only to return to their benches soon after. What to do? Let’s remove the benches, that’ll teach them! Sure, much better for senior citizens to stay locked indoors, where statistics show that most people get the virus, rather than outdoors, where the percentages are minimal. There is a saying in Napoli, “facite ammuina”. Google it if you want to know what I mean...

And now for something completely different, a story that we read a few days ago on the Grosseto edition of Il Tirreno. According to their article, the result of one of the many real estate disposal initiatives brought forward by the government in the early 2000s was a real disaster, at least in Grosseto. A six story office building was sold in 2004 for around 10 million Euros only to be then leased by some government agencies with a 18 year old lease. How much did they pay? Around a million euros per year, that went to a private real estate fund. When the contract expires next year, the agencies should move to a building on public owned land. Too bad that it hasn’t been built yet. Such a deal would be more than enough to get any CEO fired. Things in the public sector don’t work like that. One of the many small stories that made the public debt explode in the last decades. Who cares? The taxpayers will always foot the bill, right?

Let’s move now to a really intriguing story we read yesterday on Il Tirreno, a one of a kind wine cellar that will be built in the Argentario region. Instead of using a cave or building the cellar from scratch, more than 10000 bottles of wine will be placed in metal cages 35 meters below sea level, 500 meters from the shore facing Isola Rossa. The bottles of Talamo, a wine produced on the hills overlooking the town of Talamone, will remain underwater from one to two years. The temperature at that depth is around 16 degrees Celsius all year round, something that is great to age wine. The idea came to the winemaker Marco Bacci while sailing his boat. He noticed that wine aged better when he kept it in the bilge, where the temperature is almost constant. Once found the right spot, the first batch of wine to be aged like this will be ten thousand bottles of a 2018 red wine. The idea isn’t really new, as it was used in Portofino to age sparkling wine but it’s the first time such a solution is used in our region. We can’t wait to see how this wine will taste - we’ll let you know when it’s ready.

Considered it’s the weekend, another story related to wine, this time from Empoli, where two sommeliers decided to challenge the online commerce behemoths promising to deliver the clients’ favourite bottles in just an hour. According to the article we read on Il Tirreno, the extra quick delivery is limited to the area around Empoli but it’s still interesting. The idea was born during the first lockdown, when Andrea Vanni and Marianna Maestrelli created an online wine boutique, with an exclusive catalogue of wines from small vineyards, catering to those that look for something special. What can you do to stand out between the various online outlets? Promise extra quick delivery, maybe for those that buy their presents at the last second. Interesting concept, not sure if there’s a market for it but good luck anyway to this gutsy start-up.

Let’s close this weekend episode with a story we read some time ago on the Pistoia edition of Il Tirreno, the story of a 27 year old Argentinian woman that is doing everything she can to find her long lost relatives. Catalina Guidi lives in El Bolson, a town in Patagonia, close to the border with Chile. She has never been to Italy but she obviously comes from Italian stock. Her great grandparents died many years ago and no one seemed to be able to tell her where her family came from. It wasn’t an easy search. Guidi might be a very unusual surname in Patagonia but it’s pretty popular in Buenos Aires. After a while she managed to find the marriage certificates for her great grandparents. Giuseppe Guidi was born in Pistoia in 1908 and decided to move to Argentina in 1931, after the death of his mother. The impact with Argentinian society wasn’t easy. He divorced his wife in 1941 and then disappeared into thin air. Some relatives are sure that he got back to Italy after the end of the war but no one is sure about it. Catalina now is asking anyone on social media to help her know what happened to Giuseppe and find out if she has living relatives in Tuscany. We really wish her the best of luck and to be soon able to come to Tuscany and meet her extended family.

That was all for today, tomorrow we’ll take a day off. We’ll be back with week 3 of What’s Up Tuscany starting from Monday. Thanks for listening and goodbye.