Tenuta Vallocaia is celebrating its first 40 years with a 2.7 million euro turnover and a future yet to be written. The Montepulciano reality, which belongs to Swiss entrepreneur Rudi Bindella, will close 2023 with a turnover that is two hundred thousand euros higher than in recent years, but which, as Giovanni Capuano, who is director of the estate, explained, "will be destined to grow, because over the next seven years we will gradually put on the market the fruits of the new eleven hectares of vineyards that are coming on stream." Plans that "will allow us to go from about 180 thousand bottles to 250-260 thousand, for a production area that will touch 54 hectares out of 175 total."
Meanwhile, the estate founded by the Swiss entrepreneur in 1983 is undergoing a distribution metamorphosis, because "the entry of the new winery, which was worth a 17 million euro investment, has changed the balance of sales, with foreign sales dropping from 70 percent to 55 percent, with Switzerland being the first market at 48 percent, while of the remaining 45 percent, half is purchased right in the new location (the other half goes to Horeca, ed.)," Capuano continued.
Looking instead at the future of new productions, "we are still studying the right opportunities," the director explained, "both in terms of product and channels, because while it is true that we are very present in Tuscany and could be more so, it is also true that our desire is to be much more capillary.
All this knowing that they have Bindella behind them, a group that "during 2023, after a good first half of the year and a second half slightly down," as Rudi Bindella himself pointed out, "we think we can close with revenues of 220 million euros, in line with what we did last year." This volume, generated by a portfolio that, in addition to Tenuta Vallocaia, includes a wine import company and forty-five restaurants including L'Ornellaia in Zurich, created in partnership with Frescobaldi, for a subdivision that sees "gastronomy at 150 million euros, distribution at 60 million and other activities at 10 million, while future forecasts, despite the economic situation, see us optimistic in the right measure."
All this with an eye on Tenuta Vallocaia, "which for me has always been more of a sentimental than a business investment, but no less important for that, quite the contrary: my goal is to get to make signature wines that reflect the beauty of the place and the soul of the producer," Bindella concludes.
