This farm came into being in 1984 when Daniela Giglio and Piero Tapparo began rearing goats and making cheese. It was given the name Amaltea as a tribute to the goat (Amalthaea in English) that according to legend suckled the baby Zeus. In the early 1990s they also began growing berry fruits (blueberries, raspberries, redcurrants, blackberries, strawberries, mulberries and so on), fruit and vegetables, and subsequently opened a modern workshop to process them into juices sauces, tracklements (classic giardiniera, pickled vegetables, for example), relishes to go with cheese and fruit preserved in syrup. Now Daniela and Piero’s daughter Ialisa has joined the business to run the workshop and shop (open Saturday 9am-1pm, in summer also Thursday, and every day across the festive period) in the centre of Borgiallo, a small village in the Valle Sacra in at the foot of Punta Quinseina, an Alpine peak. The fruit compotes contain little or no sugar, as does the popular clear blueberry juice. The shop stocks the produce of other Masters of Taste – Bottega dei Bombi (fruit jellies), The Tea, Le Masche (wine) and Mulino di Piova (flour) – and Cascina Amaltea also sells its own at the Monday market in Cuorgnè and at the market held on the second and fourth Saturday every month in Ivrea.
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