The Favretto’s winery history
In our country, viticulture has been a family business since its origins. The main strength of family enterprises is the joint for achieving an objective focused in putting your heart into it, with the intention of generating good quality products in order to carry on a genealogy that follows a feat and develops an idea.
Different researches show that family business is probably the oldest commercial organization in Humans´ History.
Before multinationals companies were created, family enterprises already existed. Even before the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century or the Renaissance in the 15 th century; as a matter of fact the little industries made by craftsmen an merchants used to take the name of its founder.
This is what happened with Favretto´s winery.
Our history started in Pagnano D’ Asolo , Italy, on February 2, 1908, when its founder was born: Ferruccio Favretto.
Pagnano belongs to Asolo´s commune and used to be a town inhabitated by less than a 1000 people mostly farmers, building workers, carpenters, smiths –nowadays it does not reach the 10000 inhabitants. It is located in the northwest of Italy in Treviso province, which is part of “Del Veneto” region.
Behind the city we can find the famous Mount Grappa. At some time this little town was home of the Emperor Enrique II.
Being nineteen years old, Ferruccio started his journey to America. On May 11 th , 1927 set sail from the Genova Port in an old steamer ship named “Conde Verde”. And on May 26 th , 1927 he arrived at Buenos Aires. Then he would decide to settle down in Rio Negro province.
His first job was the primary and secondary canal course which would irrigate the area. Digging was a laborious work, everything was done with their hands and as there were no kind of forestation, the strong wind that in some occasions used to last all night long , erased absolutely everything that had been done the day before.
The beginning was hard. The scenery was the vast expand of the dessert land. There were no trees, just some bushes and hills spread along the field. The sun was incandescent and there were no place to hide from it.
Shortly after, Ferruccio Favretto, began to develop his activity, first as a milkman and then as a vintner. The first corral was built in the city of General Enrique Godoy, located in the 120 th chakra and consisted of fifty hectares.
In 1935, Ferruccio got married to María Disiot, an Italian woman from Partole a city of Istria province. Their two sons, Juan and Adelino, were born in that house. They were the architects of the surname´s growth and the winery´s transcendence. Soon in the valley´s environment people started to refer to them as the Favretto brothers´ winery.
In 1944, he stopped renting this domain and bought another one 2 kilometres far from the first one, which was in the city of Villa Regina, where nowadays the winery is situated. Thirty six years later, in 1980 the Favretto brothers in a kind of tribute or nostalgia made to buy the old chakra in Gral. E. Godoy, where thre was still the humble house in which they had been born ... And so they decided to start a vineyard there.
Briefly, Mr. Ferruccio Favretto became the town´s milkman – his staff was one of the largest in the area, he owned twenty cows. Every morning he would take the milk from the cows and deliver it on horseback to the neighbours. Some files from that time show that the cattle´s identification –frequently known as property mark- was the second to be register in Villa Regina in 1938, the insignia that identifies the winery (F?).
In 1944, Ferruccio planted the first fallows. It was very common for every foreigners to prepare their own wine. Some anecdotes from those times tell that every inmigrant used t compete with their neighbours in order to find out which one was the best. Such an overcoming rivalry, just to make a bigger effort and to do it in an eagerly way the following harvest. Something similar to what currently happens appealing to the new technologies, or lokking for some advice from those who travel around the country or even the world, bringinh the latest innovations, giving a personalized treatment to every client.
For many farmers passion for wine was something circumscribed to the family consumption. However, Ferruccio Favretto found the passion in the wine. He discovered in this atavistic beverage that which is unknown why it comes alive. He verified that this elixir surprised us every time it comes out of its glass cage.
And so he started to plant more hectares. In 1947 he built three pools made of bricks and cement. One of them had a capacity of 5000 litres –opened- and was used for the fermentation process- The other two, which were used for conservation, had a capacity of 6200 and 6700 litres. They are still in the winery and anyone who visit it, can see them. Refurbished and painted with epoxy, and keep on fulfilling in an excellent way their function.
In 1948, the winery´s founder began to give to the product the suitable conditions for its sale. Little by little, from that moment, he started to built the winery´s clientele stand.
Juan y Adelino sensibly carried on their father´s legacy. The seeds that Ferruccio had planted did not get dry, in fact they have germinated for several years when the Favretto brothers realized that a demijohn sold bought another one and this produced some others sales. Time went by and that effort started to get even bigger year by year. Although the company broaden its horizons and rebuilt many structures, it has always respected its origins.
Surely , if Ferruccio was alive, he would be proud of the sensible development, the probity and ethics unfold by Juan y Adelino. Values that people from Regina highlight everyday.
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