Antinori, top Italian wine brand, will directly import its wines onto the US market

Antinori, the Italian wine family par excellence, will directly import its wines onto the US market, thanks to a new “company” created specifically, which represents the future and is called like the history of the longest-running Italian winery, namely “Vinattieri 1385”, certified year of birth of the company, which then, through the centuries, became Marchesi Antinori, today in the 26th generation of the company, led by the sisters Albiera, Allegra and Alessia, together with their father and honorary president, Piero Antinori, and CEO Renzo Cotarella. Who, in response to a question from WineNews, announced the news at a talk held at the Antinori winery in Chianti Classico, in Bargino, organised by Intesa San Paolo, a bank that supported Antinori, more than others, in the acquisition of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellar, an icon of Napa Valley wine, completed at the end of June 2023. “A very important and “heavy” operation from a financial standpoint (we’re talking about a deal whose overall value exceeds one billion dollars, for a company with a turnover of 70-80 million dollars, 100 hectares of vineyard, and a very high profitability, 20 times the average of Italian wineries, ed.), but which also opened this door to a company like Antinori, solid also because the family has never distributed dividends and has always reinvested in the company with foresight and patience”, underlined Cotarella. Who also added: “an acquisition that gives us great perspective, in an area where the added value is very high, considering that the average price of Stag’s Leap bottles is over 40 dollars per bottle and that, allowing us to create a direct import, finally makes us masters of our destiny in a very important market like the American one, where it is difficult for an importer first, and then a distributor, to give priority to all the products that a company like ours has”, said the CEO Marchesi Antinori, Renzo Cotarella.