Italiano
Bruno Trentini leaves the guide of Cantina di Soave
The baton passes to Wolfgang Raifer, Deputy Director of Cantina di Soave for three years.
After 27 years at the helm of the historic Soave winery, Bruno Trentini left at the end of 2019 to retire. An oenologist, born in 1956, he began his career at the Cantina di Soave in 1992 as Deputy Director during Franco Roncador's general management, then in 2002 he took on the role of General Manager. Now, after 27 years of challenges and achievements, he passes the baton on to Wolfgang Raifer, a South Tyrolean oenologist, born in 1973 and former director of the Cantina Colterenzio, who has been at his side for three years at the Cantina di Soave as deputy director.
Arrived in Soave in the early 90s from Trentino, his native land, Bruno Trentini immediately understood the enormous potential of the Veronese territory and its great wine vocation. In the Cantina di Soave his commitment has therefore been translated into the quality project, a new management approach focused on the protection and enhancement of the denominations and native grape varieties. An integral part of this quality project was the creation, in 2003, of the Cantina Rocca Sveva, where the high-end wines are produced and which hosts an average of 50,000 winelovers from all over the world every year.
With passion and competence, determination and managerial skills Trentini has thus embarked on a long journey, the result of multiple strategic choices over the years, which has allowed Cantina di Soave to become what it is today: the first cooperative winery in Italy and one of the largest in Europe, a large company with a full supply chain "from the bunch to the bottle", able to guarantee the quality of its products.
Its activity in Cantina di Soave began with an expansive phase, lasting about twenty years, which saw the company engaged in a long process of expansion of the production area, based on the unification of other cooperative wineries in the area. The aim was to establish a broad and solid basis on which to set up a strong commercial policy aimed at affirming the company's brands on all sales channels, both in Italy and abroad: in 1996, during the general management of Roncador, the incorporation of the Cazzano di Tramigna winery and in 2005 that of the Illasi winery in order to grow on the Valpolicella wines front; in 2008 the incorporation of the Montecchia di Crosara winery, in an area extremely suited to the production of sparkling wine bases, in particular Lessini Durello, a denomination in which Trentini, by virtue of its great expertise as a sparkling wine producer, has always held a special place.
In this way Cantina di Soave has more than doubled both the number of members and the number of hectares planted with vines, creating a mosaic of production sites and vineyards that embrace five valleys in the eastern part of the Verona area and that allow it to be today the expression of all the main denominations of the territory. Trentini was aware that the expansion of the wine-growing base would have made it necessary to adapt the production structures: so began what we might call the industrial phase, during which the company invested by modernizing the delivery centres and production sites, acquiring new structures and facilities and, recently, by enlarging the main office in Viale della Vittoria, which allows Cantina di Soave to project itself into the future with an ultra-efficient and modern headquarters. Overall, the investment amounted to approximately 90 million euros, one of the most significant in the sector on the national scene in the last decade.
In these 27 years Trentini has led the company through a path full of challenges and courageous choices from every point of view: structural, economic and commercial. All this has meant that the prestige and consideration of Cantina di Soave has grown enormously over the years, so much so that today it is in many ways a point of reference on the national and international wine scene. The extremely significant aspect is that, in all these years as director, Trentini has always been able to count on the trust of the social base because from the very beginning it was clear that every managerial choice he made was made with respect for the cooperative nature of Cantina di Soave and therefore for the good of its members who have always been guaranteed security and economic achievement, with remuneration for the grapes always well above market value and competitors.
"For Cantina di Soave, these were intense and rich years - says President Roberto Soriolo - culminating in the 120th anniversary year with the IWSC title of "Best Italian winery of the year". This result was made possible thanks to a great value that the Cantina possesses: people. Today in particular we would like to express our most heartfelt and grateful thanks to the General Manager Bruno Trentini for his dedication, for his very high value as a competent manager who is attentive to the opportunities to be seized, his far-sightedness in development proposals, his energetic ability to deal with all company functions, from the workers to the directors. There is no need to add anything else: the facts and works speak for themselves. At the same time, we welcome Wolfgang Raifer as our new Managing Director, who I am sure will take every aspect of the company forward with the utmost expertise for the future of Cantina di Soave's growing winery. Technical Director Filippo Pedron has also retired, so our thanks go to him too, and we wish Paolo D'Agostin well in his work.
