Who is Ancilla

Many company stories have a touch of the fairy story about them and mine, in its simplicity and substance, is no exception.

Once upon a time, there was an energetic and extraordinary woman who worked in the fields, who got up every day at 3am to make, order, coordinate, check, receive, send...

She was called Ancilla, and she was my grandmother.

In the middle of the nineteen seventies, with the help of her daughter, Ancilla bought two holdings with vineyards: La Ghidina and Cadellora. The first in Lugana di Sirmione, in the heart of the production area of one of the most elegant whites of Italy, and the second in Villafranca di Verona.

The daughter was called Maria Teresa and she was my mother.
From the start, Maria Teresa watched over the vineyards of La Ghidina and personally supervised the production of grapes that, in those days, were sold to a number of famous cellars of Lugana.
At the start of the new millennium, however, my mother wanted to pass on the baton and I found myself facing a choice: sell everything or become producers of Lugana.  I was working in finance but the passion for the land was in my blood:  I always took my holidays to coincide with the harvest.  

The land or the world of finance?

I chose the land and changed my life. I had the advantage of working in an area perfect for cultivation, based on long experience in producing grapes for making wine, and I could count on the help of trusted collaborators who knew these lands and their grapes very well. I didn’t know how to do anything in the cellar, so I had to learn to do everything: I worked for a year like any apprentice, laying hoses, making racking, cleaning tanks, preparing cuvee yeast, supervising the fermentation and bottling.  This experience helped me feel that the cellar I later built in Villafranca, in the midst of the vineyards of Cadellora, really belonged to me. 

I still get my hands dirty today and when they need a hand, my team know that I won’t hold back.

The lifelong commitment of my mother and my grandmother is still a young project, one that continues to grow.  One day after another, the most difficult challenge I could have faced is becoming the source of my greatest satisfaction and the best choice I could have made in my life.

This is why my company has the same name as my grandmother: because her dream is now mine, and it is a wonderful reality.