Events and News

"You are crazy, they told me when I decided to buy these lands. It was the early 70s. Together with Piscinas, the area made the largest desert in Europe. The reclamation of ETFAS (Sardinian Land and Agricultural Transformation Authority) eliminated the instable dunes, however eroded by the wind, in the 1950s, then proceeding to plant the pines in San Vero Milis and Narbolia. These were all quarries. The mechanical means had to work a whole month to smooth everything out". It is difficult to imagine the mud and dust, now. Behind Mr. Franco Marcoli, shaded by the pergola, there is a lush lawn, surrounded by myrtle and night jasmine, lit by flowers scattered all over around. Even bamboo has managed to take root in the garden of the S'Anea farmhouse. In the evening, the adults will watch the children playing with the energy left from a day at the beach.

“It was a diversion in some way. My wife came from a family that had always owned a vineyard. You know, just domestic wine and vernaccia. She insisted. I always think big, however, and in 1973 I bought other land and asked for authorization to plant the vines. I would have preferred the "nieddera" type, but only the vernaccia could be financed. We covered 7 hectares starting from a single plant. After three years we produced 250 quintals a year. Then the relationship with the cellar deteriorated, the vine fell ill. We uprooted everything”.

The idea of creating a farm was born in 2002. Mr. Marcoli is 65 years old and still very much willing to do. He left the Riola Sardo company only in 2012, which for thirty years has produced 20 quintals of milk per day. Sixty hectares, one hundred heads, three thousand square meters of sheds. Here, the farmhouse started from the tool shed. In 2005 the double commitment cost him a heart attack: “Over time I continued to buy the land around. I don't buy land elsewhere. I know it costs me more, but I like it that way. I think I'm done. I'm tired. May be".

The land is poor, says Mr. Franco, it would be too demanding to find a market for prickly pears, used only for breakfast jams. But for some reason lemons proliferate in the hundred plants surrounding the farm, in a period where elsewhere production is stopped. “Dealers pay me almost twice as much. I haven't explained it yet to myself. It could be the wind, the climate, the sea. God knows”. S’Anea is located a few kilometers from Sal’e Porcus, the temporary pond of the flamingo kingdom, and from the splendid coast that goes from S’Archittu to Is Arutas, the transparent stage of mistral and surf.

S'Anea was immediately appreciated by the guests. Italians, Europeans, but also two boys who arrived by car from Moscow, and the Peruvians, the Himalayan painter who left a sketch as a gift, the Japanese princess who had two bridesmaids in tow. Mr. Franco tells his story to many, of how he started working in the family business, but only after a six-month trip to the United States. New York, Wisconsin and California to learn how to manage large companies. The knowledge brought by the vast American spaces took root in the fertile ground of an entrepreneurial tradition. His father, a surveyor from Brescia, was called to work in Sardinia by his countryman engineer Bianchi, a close friend of Mussolini and a socialist, therefore sent to study remediation in Sicily and Sardinia, in exile. "Nenni, Emilio Lussu, Segni, the American minister of agriculture have passed through our house".

"We kept the setting my mother wanted. A farm where guests feel at home", explains Umberto Marcoli, agronomist and administrator of S'Anea. Commercial strategy and communication are instead in the hands of her sister Maria Carmela. “We guide our customers towards an in-depth knowledge of the area, towards its enormous cultural and environmental heritage. Starting with the archeology of Sinis, the beauty of its beaches and wetlands. But also the interior with Barumini, the Giara, Laconi and Santu Lussurgiu. We have a treasure in our hands and we must preserve it, that's why we decided to take part in the Friends of Maristanis club. We believe in sustainable tourism, attentive to the demands of nature, communitarian and systemic. We are surrounded by some of the most beautiful wetlands in Italy and Europe. We must protect and enhance them".

Patriarch Franco also states that the time has come to abandon the divisive tradition: “The sea costs us twice, to import and export. My father always said that Sardinia should live only on agriculture and tourism. In the time of globalization, it is no longer possible to comply with the saying ‘centu concas, centu berrittas’, a hundred heads, a hundred hats in Sardinian language. All companies in the sector must unite, make a system. In these times, you either join the others or die"