- You are ready? - [Interviewer] Yeah. - You start ask something? - [Interviewer] Yeah, I will. - Okay. - [Interviewer] Mimmo, take one. - This is very huge pieces. We hope inside, there
will be some special pipe. I am Romeo Domenico. Everybody call me Mimmo, short name. And I am a cutter of briar and pipe maker, too. - Most of the briar mills
are cutting briar for pipe factories, but
what Mimmo does differently is he's a pipe maker. - [Mimmo] And you see some example here of my half-ready pipes. - [Jeff] So he knows how to
cut briar for pipe makers. - He's second generation briar cutter, so he's drawing on many,
many years of the industry. - He was introduced to me as the best briar cutter in the world. - I am located in Italy in a little village near French border. Nice place to live, nice weather. I go fishing when I stop
cutting briar sometimes. It's a complicated job. If you speak with somebody that know a lot of things about other wood, they don't know nothing about the briar. The beginning is in the forest. Briar is only in the Mediteranean area. The people, when they have
the briar in their property, they think they will be rich, because it looks like a lot of pipes, and they see the price of the pipes and after they think, they are rich. But when the wood still is in the forest, there is no value. There are some briar, some is other tree. The skin darker, like the
two, you see that three? This is briar, the three. This is good example, very near. This is strawberry wood,
and this is briar wood. (speaking Italian) Okay, this is the briar. This is the roots, and this is the branch, and you see the structure like this. The grain go from this
point to this point. And you see the ring? Because this is the years, that they grow, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. This is very huge, nice pieces, and perhaps I will make
two nice pieces from here. They bring up and they need to clean, from the stone, with the ax, so they need to prepare
the blocks very well, put out the center, the
red, and the branch away. This is actually the
work done in the same way that fifty years ago, the same way. And there are not a lot of people that know the way to do that. And the people that go in the forest. This is hard work, very hard work. They go 5:30 in the morning and work until five in the evening, and they carry perhaps 100
kilo if they are lucky. This is a very, very old job. Nobody know these people,
but they are very important for the pipe business. A small one. No, no, a small one. It's a baby. Sleep well. See you in five years. - The people that harvest
is called Cioccaioli in Italian, I don't know
the name in English. I think it doesn't exist in English. When the minimum quantity is done from the mountain, they take, more or less, is every week. They need to keep wet from the beginning. This quantity would be stored
in a place with water, until the big truck arrive. But the truck would be
wet with some plastic on, because if they need to
drive for five, six hour, it would arrive
cracked if you don't cover. My father built this house in '69. He was the best cutter in the world, and he know that, and he buy land and he built the big factory, only for the briar, except
the apartment for the family. Very clever building for cutting briar with the deposit under for the humidity. Everything was study for
work, very very clever way. The process is to have the
roots as fresh as possible. Is impossible to cut this in one day. That's why we need to save
and keep them alive. This is the pieces
already clean with the ax. I prefer to buy the wood like this, but this arrive from outside Italy. They don't do this. The red part is not good. All this is not good. There would be crack, 100%. If you would take care,
boil it 24 hour, there is no chance. The good stuff is this pink and white. But this is, four finger is nice. - So my name is Antoine Grenard. I am the general manager
of the Chacom Pipes. We manufacture around
60,000 pipes per year. We are waiting for a delivery from Mimmo. I order from him some
plateau also, but ebauchon. Ebauchon is more important for me. Ebauchon is this normal briar block. - [Mimmo] Very nice cross-cut. You see the bird's eyes,
is very tight and regular. Jeff: These little blocks just came in. These are from Mimmo. We call 'em ebauchons. I do a lot of little classic shapes, and these have just extraordinary grain. I'm really happy to be able to get these. - We call that ebauchon,
and this is plateau. With the rough briar on the top. - [Mimmo] We cut the plateau in this way. The plateau cut today, most of the people consider this cut the best. - [Lee] He started doing these,
he calls 'em crazy cuts, and I might have a design already in mind, but the piece a' wood
maybe wants somethin' else, and it'll tell me. - And we work with the nature. We never know from outside
what's happening inside. Every piece is different. That's why is so complicated to cut the wood. I feel the wood. When I see the wood,
I feel, and I say, ah, this is nice, and you say, why is nice? Because it's clean. There's no spot and the grain is tight, and after the second cut,
I have better information and I say, okay, I was wrong. But immediately I change and
cut in the best possible way. Yes, we speak together. It's good, but it's not the top. But my top is very difficult to find. The straight grain is the
most difficult to have. - [Lee] Now, the bird's
eye is the very end of the straight grain, and
it goes from the burl end all the way down to
the center of the burl. That's where it stores the water. Some pieces, you look at it
and you start gettin' seasick, there's so much bird's eye in it. - Everybody like the top of the briar, and I am very strict to
put blocks on the top. - And we kind of fight
over some of it, but. - [Interviewer] Do you have
any of Mimmo's briar here? - No, he has been promising
me briar for... for four years. - But I know, because he's so good, and everybody want briar from Mimmo. Yes, he's very, very busy. But I talked to him this year. Now he promised me to send me some. - 'Cause he knows too many people. And I wait from him some ebauchon. And he knows. - We needed to take the best as possible, but not only the best
and destroy to the rest. They are tension is
less in the low grading, but still they is a lot of tension. You need to make all
these calculations, but very fast. You need to play between the
size and between the quality and between your hands. That is most important. (Mimmo laughing) It's the only thing very regular. Don't change. You need to be scared about your finger. - We boil because there are
tannins inside the wood. The tannins need to go out. If you boil it the wrong
way, the tannins still inside the blocks, and it's
not good for the smoke. We start in the evening. The day after, we boil for ten
to twelve hour, consecutive, ten, twelve hour. - Usually we make barbecue every ten days when we boil the briar. We do like a lunch outside. And in the winter when
it's cold, we eat inside. In the dust, in the middle of the dust. - We was lucky tonight. We fish. You like fish? - [Interviewer] I love fish. - [Man] I love fish. (Karin chuckles)
(Mimmo chuckles) - [Mimmo] This is very, very fresh. Ope! She like to make everything alone. I do alone. "Can I help you?" No. Yes, perhaps Sarah would
be the first woman cutter. (speaking Italian) - No! - Nah! This wood was boiled
yesterday, and we put here in the humid place where the roots are for start the dry process
very, very slowly. Normally, stay here at least ten day, sometimes 20, 25 day after boiling. And after, I start to put the top blocks in some plastic box, and put in the shelf, and dry six, eight month. And I know the boxes, where they are second
quality, first quality, more dry, less dry. I know all the boxes. - [Lee] After boiling 12 to 18
months before he'll sell it. It's quite a process from
the ground to your mouth. - [Jeff] I think something
that's really special about pipe making is that so many people are involved in the process. They're artisans in their own right. - And the best satisfaction
is when my customers call me after receiving the briar, and they say, "Mimmo,
oh, this is unbelievable." "Why you give me only 50, not 100 pieces?" I am very happy when they say that. All the work that is done for this, there is energy in these blocks. All the people that work for this, they put their energy in this, and I think they have like a soul. It's not my final result, cutting briar. Friends, friends, pipe friends! It's an instrument to meet people. - I like also that he has a
lot of passion for his work, because I like people who has, uh, I don't know how you
say in English, but... He like to do something
with the whole heart. - This is my way, about everything. This is Mimmo. If you like or you
hate, but this is Mimmo.
