Imagine our faces when we heard that we had been chosen out of all the other prosecco producers!
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| Bele Casel Società Agricola S.S. |
It all started over 40 years ago when my father, a winemaking student, met my mother. But above all he met my grandfather Ilario - who owned just under two hectares of Malvasia near his home and like any good farmer did at the time- sold wine in demijohns.
Once Dad finished up his studies he helped out on the land as well as working in a distillery where we managed to produce some great wines from our family's vineyards that were beginning to take shape thanks to Luca (my brother), Paola (our sister) and myself - not forgetting ""La Contea"" which was born during those successful farming years!
Many children have fond memories of their grandparents, but few can boast about the hands-on involvement that these two people had with them. These parents were so devoted to their love for travel and adventure that they entrusted everything in life into the care of my grandparent's house: a child's upbringing, everyday jobs around town - all those things went by the wayside while mum and dad pursued this dream bigger than anything else in life. The kids would spend afternoons down at grandma’s cellar where we'd help bottle up her home brew as much as our little arms could handle (200-300 bottles per day).
In the space of a few years, our industry underwent radical changes. Foreign markets became more lucrative and we all started targeting them as hard as possible to increase sales. But it wasn’t nearly enough; despite hours upon hours of work and sacrifice spent producing high quality wine in-house, no one was buying any yet!
The first time I ever heard about foreign markets for wines is when my friend from Italy told me he had been shipping his wine there (to countries like China) with great success – but nobody talked about e-commerce at that point either.
I was a little nervous when I heard the American importer wanted to buy Prosecco from us as well. We knew that our cellar couldn’t compete with all the big wineries in this area, but we were confident of our product's quality and didn't consider ourselves salesmen or anything other than producers trying their best for customers. But it would be impossible to sell without speaking English very well!
Imagine our faces when we heard that we had been chosen out of all the other prosecco producers! Five years on, doing what makes us happy and making great wines has not changed.
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