The Edinburgh residents craved a rural home and a slower pace of life where they could give their children a more healthy and active lifestyle
A British couple who moved from Scotland to the Italian countryside to run a wine estate say their children now have a life that is more connected to nature, culture and community.
Sofia Di Ciacca, 35, and Luigi Tana, 38, were living in Edinburgh but craved a rural home and a slower pace of life where they could give their children a more healthy and active lifestyle.
Although they were born in Scotland, the couple have dual British and Italian citizenship. Ms Di Ciacca’s ancestors hailed from the tiny, traditional village of Picinisco, south of Rome. Barely 1,000 people live in the area, with the majority being farmers and shepherds.
Although she grew up in Scotland, since childhood Ms Di Ciacca had regularly visited her ancestral home.
The family runs the I Ciacca winery and vineyard, as well as a farm and hotel
Her great-grandparents had left Italy for Scotland in the 1960s, abandoning a historic vineyard owned by the family in the hamlet of I Ciacca, which dates back to the 1500s. It was only many decades later that Ms Di Ciacca’s parents bought and redeveloped the estate near Picinisco.
So last July, the couple sold their home and permanently relocated to I Ciacca. Ms Di Ciacca gave up a career as an accountant and joined her family at the wine estate, which she now runs.
Mr Tana, whose family hails from the region of Campania, further south, owns a wine importing business in the UK, and he still travels back and forth for work.
The family says their move was not triggered solely by the desire to reconnect with their Italian roots but by their three daughters’ interests.
Ms Di Ciacca’s parents bought and redeveloped the wine estate near Picinisco
The ultimate goal was to give Raffaella four, Eleonora, three, and newborn Serena a life surrounded by nature, a warm local community and a healthier way of life compared with the one they would have led back in Scotland, they say.
“We always had a lot of connections and the desire to return to Italy. However, we weren’t sure when that should be, or could be,” says Ms Di Ciacca. “We found the right moment to be last year when I found out [I was] pregnant again with our third child, and our little girls, our older girls, were growing. So we wanted them to be moving to Italy when they’d be able to take on the Italian language.”
The two older girls go to the village school and have already made Italian friends. “The girls started school in September, and already their Italian has improved enormously. It’s incredible,” Ms Di Ciacca adds. “While the baby was born in Italy, so she is the first generation of our family to be born again in Italy, after a couple of generations were born in Scotland.”
The couple wanted their children to be more connected to nature, Italian culture and a deeper sense of belonging that is typically present in small Italian communities.
Ms Di Ciacca says the entire family already feels much healthier since they moved to Italy
“The piazza [the main square] does a lot more compared to the UK, where instead you tend to do something and then go back to your house and you stick with the same people all the time,” says Ms Di Ciacca. “The piazza italiana means that everyone of every walk of life chats, has a coffee together. It’s a more sociable way of life than it is in the UK.”
She believes this new environment and linguistic openness will benefit her children’s development by making them “really confident people” as well as fully bilingual.
She says the entire family already feels much healthier since they moved last summer.
“We’re walking everywhere, not puffing and puffing, because we’re not in a car or always at work. We’re outside all the time. We’re not looking for those snacks in the same way as back in the UK – here we’re eating better, real fresh produce” straight from the local farmers’ orchards, she says.
The couple enjoys Picinisco even in winter, when it becomes much quieter.
“It’s different. Being retired or not having things to do is one choice, but moving to rural Italy and having kids at school” and a full-time job at the wine estate won’t get you bored, she says.
“We don’t feel like expats in that ‘move to the country’. We’ve got a full, busy life, so the winter doesn’t really make a difference. Also coming from Scotland, we’re used to rainy, cold weather so having the seasons in Italy is just amazing, it is definitely a plus”.