“During the lockdown, when restaurants and hotels were closed and no longer buying our wines, we thought of a way not to” sell off “the bottles in the cellar that was in line with the values of our companies: respect for nature, ethics, sustainability “. Thus, from the cylinder of Stefano Casadei, a multifaceted Florentine entrepreneur, the project to make a wine for large distribution without added sulphites emerged, intercepting a market trend but also the need of those who have an allergy or intolerance to sulfur dioxide (always produced, in small quantities, during the fermentation of the grapes) and risks disturbances in case of further additions for conservation purposes, as normally happens.
Thus was born the label “Mipiace senzasulfiti”, a Tuscan Igt wine, red and rosé, made with grapes from the Maremma and the Pontassieve area (Florence), which is certified organic and vegan (does not contain clarifiers of animal origin), and wants to be a model of sustainability in packaging. The bottle is lighter to reduce CO2 emissions in the production process; the cap is made of glass to allow easy reuse of the bottle for water or oil; the label is silk-screened but without the use of paints, replaced by glass powder; the box and the bottle neck tag are made with recycled paper.
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In the first year, 25 thousand bottles of red and 7 thousand of rosé wines were produced, distributed in Italy (17 thousand bottles in Unicoop Firenze supermarkets at a retail price of 7.5 euros) and in Switzerland, the USA and Canada (15 thousand).
“For us it is an ethical project – explains Cristian Ravai, marketing director of the Casadei Family group – because being ethical also means thinking about the health of those consumers who develop side effects from the intake of sulfur dioxide, and because we have looked to sustainable development choosing organic and vegan grapes and low impact packaging. “Mipiace senzasulfiti” is a healthy and genuine product that we are able to make thanks to the cutting-edge technologies of our service company, Autoctona, and thanks to the skills of our winemakers ». The first 25 thousand bottles served to test the market, which is still a niche but is growing. “The reception was brilliant – says Casadei – and next year we will produce 100 thousand bottles of wine without added sulphites”.
Autoctona srl is the company of the Casadei family active in services for the wine sector (filtration machines, mobile bottling, winemaking and logistics for third parties) and works alongside Tecnovite, a company that designs, builds and manages vineyards (4,000 hectares in Italy central). Alongside these two companies, which invoice around twenty million, the family owns three wine estates: Castello del Trebbio (almost 60 hectares of vineyards) in Pontassieve, in the Chianti Rufina area; Casadei Estate in Suvereto, Maremma (25 hectares); Olianas in Sardinia (35 hectares). A fourth estate is being born in Casentino, near the pieve di Romena, with pinot noir and chardonney plants. Altogether 110 hectares of property plus 60 rented, for a production of about 700 thousand bottles a year which, before Covid, had a turnover of 3 million.