83 year-old Herb Filipponi’s father emigrated to the Central Coast of California from the Swiss canton of Ticino in the dawning days of the 20th Century. Herb’s dad married a girl from Cambria, a member of the Fiscalini family, who had also emigrated from Ticino.
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The Filipponi family started a dairy operation in the hills behind Morro Bay, but a few years later, they relocated their dairy to a farm just south of San Luis Obispo in 1938. Their farmhouse was adjacent to the Pacific Coast Railway line to Avila Beach, with South Higuera Street, the main arterial out of town back in the day, a quarter mile away.
The railway is long gone but the family farmhouse where Herb grew up is still there, just off Highway 101. It’s now the home of the Filipponi Wine Cellars tasting room.
Join correspondent Tom Wilmer for a visit with Herb Filipponi as he recalls the Swiss/Italian dairy heritage on the Central Coast, his childhood years, coming of age during WWII, and the family journey from milking cows to making wine.
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