Interview with Luigi Andreoli

How did you start to collaborate with Farina?
In 1975 I met Remo Farina, Elena's father, on the football field, he was the owner of Fratelli Farina along with three other members. From the beginning we started talking about his enlargement plans for the activity and in 1976 started a professional marriage that lasted three years and a half, because then I went to work as a technical manager at a nearby winery. But my destiny was to continue working with them, so in 1984 I went back.

What role do you have in the company?
I’m an external consultant and give advices, I make tastings and laboratory analysis in order for everything to be at its best.

An episode that you remember?
I remember that in September 1989 Remo told me: "When I'm gone, you will help Claudio, my nephew, and my daughter Elena". He did not really need to repeat that to me, I have continued to work with them, but the work comes after the relationship that binds us. I followed the evolution of the company. A few years before he left, Remo had already prepared the ground for Claudio and Elena, who found themselves in a reality in the launch phase.

What did the new generation bring?
The new generation brought a young and innovative approach, Claudio and Elena together are two volcanoes of ideas. I've always been in favor of that, for push the company into the future. Today they are launched towards something important.

What advice would you give them?
I always tell them to run the company making special cru wines, drifting away from a purely commercial logic. Today, technology provides us with strategies that allow us to have quantity of wine ready earlier than before, but the business logics should not prevail. We must gauge the steps to take, balancing and aiming at a target.

An adjective to define Farina?
It is in the most delicate moment of its expansion. It has everything: special elite, cutting-edge and quality products, we know where the grapes come from. But the peculiarities are not enhanced in the way they might be.

What’s the point of strength?
They want the product to be high quality, bringing up the name of the company. Everything has to be of the highest quality. All of us taste the wines to make this possible.

What kind of winemaker are you?
Original and cutting edge, but for me the territorial specificities should prevail.

Why did you choose to be a winemaker?
Since I was a child I used to always go around the fields and I did not like to study. When I chose to study Oenology the first big cooperative wineries were being founded, so my father suggested for me to go and study in Conegliano Veneto. There I exploded and started studying with passion, I still remember that I used to teach to my colleagues and in return they offered me a coffee or lent me their motorbike.

What is your favorite wine?
Remo and I have given birth to the Corte Conti Cavalli, I’m tied to it with affection. And then Amarone Riserva, I saw it explode. These are the two gems for me.

What’s the wine with the biggest attractive potential?
The Godò

What would your job have been if not the winemaker?
Perhaps the chemist, indeed I use alchemy to keep as natural as possible what comes from grapes.
I always tell them to run the company making special cru wines, drifting away from a purely commercial logic. Today, technology provides us with strategies that allow us to have quantity of wine ready earlier than before, but the business logics should not prevail. We must gauge the steps to take, balancing and aiming at a target.

An adjective to define Farina?
It is in the most delicate moment of its expansion. It has everything: special elite, cutting-edge and quality products, we know where the grapes come from. But the peculiarities are not enhanced in the way they might be.