Sustainability, luxury and excellence: three nouns that we often abuse and that are very fashionable these days, but to which we often do not give a univocal interpretation. What do we really mean by excellence, luxury and sustainability?
Especially in the light of the pandemic experience, not yet completely overcome, some of these terms have added nuances of very different meanings depending on who expresses them.
We tried to ask this simple question to some small entrepreneurs and we present the first of the interviews we carried out with Sara of the TSCHÖTSCHERHOF of the Jaider family of Siusi allo Sciliar.
Her response is unsettling:
Excellence for us is simply … work! I was born in the city but with a great love for nature and for horses that prompted me to look for a place where I can live following my passions … my life here at Tschötscherhof was born like this, in a rather unexpected way.
The farm is owned by the family of my partner Andreas and I only moved here to live and work when our first daughter Isabel was born. Today I have 3 children and together with my mother’s love, the love for this job has also grown, and a lot!
This also answers your question about what luxury means to me today: being able to work without giving up watching my children grow up is what I consider luxury!
Let’s go back to the concept of excellence. In what sense do you think that work can be an excellence?
To understand why I consider work the point of excellence of this place, just observe the activity of my in-laws for just one day…
My mother-in-law Paula, wakes up early in the morning to prepare the linen (which is dried in the sun… an extraordinary scent that of the sheets dried in the sun!), Then takes care of breakfast for our guests (the farm has 8 rooms and an à la carte restaurant), then goes to give the flowers water (it takes about an hour to water all the flowers in the house), then serves lunch.
In the afternoon – if there are no unforeseen events – she goes to rest for a few minutes (just a few minutes, because there are always some granddaughters around to wake her up…) then a coffee, and finally in the evening again at the service of the guests. The love with which she takes care of every detail of the house is the same love with which she looks at her 13 grandchildren.
She will always have a smile for them and also for the guests. The work does not seem to weigh on them even if, for those who stay here at the Tschötscherhof, there is always something to do.
While Sara talks to us, her father-in-law Michael joins us with a bucket full of plums that she has just picked and pitted.
It is his contribution of fresh fruit for the plum dessert that our guests will have for breakfast tomorrow morning.
I have not yet understood what their secret is, perhaps the lightness and joy they put into doing everything they do.
Living here at the Tschötscherhof means having the honor and the burden of preserving and carrying on the “legacy” of the Jaider family who have been here since 1855 (but the house dates back to 1494). What our ancestors built with God’s help we want to preserve and improve. We are dedicated to agriculture, fruit growing, herb cultivation in the home garden and we raise livestock. Viticulture is added to these activities.
Trying every day to do our best with what is given to us by the work we do in the fields and on the farm means for us to work sustainably and not waste raw materials is a way to express respect for the nature that surrounds us and for the animals we raise.
About ten years ago, on the initiative of my father-in-law Michael, a small peasant museum was also created to keep alive the memory of the peasant life of our ancestors.
We do not seek innovation at any cost, but the preservation of good things.
Our philosophy is based on sustainability and on a healthy cuisine in which the products of the region are used.
Here, for example, there are chestnuts only when the chestnuts ripen. At the moment there are plums, when I have quinces there will be those. Often guests ask me if I don’t have products they tasted the year before and sometimes I have to disappoint them, because the products are simply not ripe yet.
Or maybe last year’s so good wine is already finished and the new one isn’t bottled yet! The Tschötschhof vineyards already existed in the last century. The name “Weingertacker” of the surrounding countryside and the century-old vine in front of the house testify to this.
People often struggle to understand, but even this concept of “not always having everything” is a feature of our home that I consider a great value.
However, this respect for nature and traditions does not mean that we do not want to innovate! Tschötscherhof was among the first houses in the area to have their own we
