Between heart, family and business: the story of Empson, a pioneer in the export of Italian wine

Getting a wine into a restaurant today is not very difficult, but keeping it on the wine list it is. “Today, young restaurateurs are easier, they don’t want to stock up in stock and they make a very limited selection of wines. They don’t buy so many crates, but the minimum necessary to not be bound and have more freedom to change. This is part of the way of thinking of my generation”. As told to WinNews by Tara Emspon, a young 33-year-old CEO, in full Millennial target, of the historic Milanese company Emspon, founded in 1972 in Milan by the adoptive parents of Tara, the New Zealander but in love with Italy, Neil Empson, and by his Italian-American wife Maria, who in a pioneering way began to bring to the U.S. names of Italian wine as Gaja Einaudi, Conterno Fantino, Jermann, Biondi Santi and more. And today, with Neal taking a step back, at the age of 80, to leave the helm at Tara, she looks to the future: ”Producers must keep quality high and not stop communicating the product and history to make a bottle unique and not anonymous. And we must support them in this story, we can no longer limit ourselves to being mere exporters”. Among the goals, new wineries to find, especially in the Islands, between Gallura in Sardinia, and Etna in Sicily.