Starting a new winery from scratch, in one of the most historic Italian wine regions as the Chianti Classico, is not a game. If any new investor comes, his first choice is to buy an estate already in production. But Luiz Barrichello is not afraid of business challenges.
He is an optimist with his hands in the ground, that’s who Luiz Barrichello is, an optimist who loves wine and has a really good intuition for business.
In his family Luiz discovers his first values. From his Venetian emigrated grandparents, Luiz inherits the strong Italian roots, the enterprise and the patriotism: they were among the founders of Garibaldi, the city in Brazil in which they arrived in 1885. From his father, a barrel maker, Luiz learns humbleness, fortitude, courage and honesty in business: from a modest barrel maker (period in which Luiz learns about wine) his father became entrepreneur and started a wealthy metallurgical company.
He creates all the rest on his own: at 18 he leaves the family business and moves to Porto Allegre to study Business Administration, starting to work in a radio but immediately he becomes interested by the television and he found with success a new channel. He continues, in a long successful carrear, arriving to help the growth of a communication group and the foundation of to a major Brazilian telecommunications group with radio and cable televisions in which he is partner and chief financial officer.
Despite the commitment that such role requires him, Luiz tries to keep alive his love of wine, tasting famous labels in his travels around the world and often stopping in Italian and French vineyards. The idea of owning a winery is always alive in his mind. One friend who worked in finance in New York gives him a bottle of a small but very famous Italian producer in Valpolicella: Giuseppe Quintarelli. And that’s how everything really started. Luiz flies to Verona and knock at the door of the winemaker. After this meeting, Luiz decides to definetly sell his shares of the communication group and to pursue totally his new business project: creating artisanal boutique wines in the best areas of the world. His first estate is in Valpolicella, thanks to the friendship with Quintarelli who introduces him to his pupil Luca Fedrigo. Together they found L’Arco in Negrar in the heart of the Valpolicella. It is 2001. In the same year Luiz begins the project of Villa Bari in Brazil where he produces red wines from international varieties with the appassimento technique that is similar to the one of Amarone.
Villa Triturris initiates in 2005 when, during the holidays in Tuscany, Luiz is driving through Cerbaia and something hits him: the usual feeling he gets when he starts a new business, that feeling of excitement but also of calm and confidence, that first impression that he learned to follow without asking himself too much why. He buys 10 hectares, hunts the planting rights, plants Sangiovese for Chianti Classico, a bit of Merlot and Cabernet which are always good in blends and throws the challenge to Tuscany with a vineyard of Malbec, which gives the wine Torraia.
And with the curiosity of those who always try to learn, during a trip to Mendoza in 2008, there again, the usual feeling and a new territory to love and to care for: Luiz creates the estate Villa Agrelo. In the future among Barichello‘s wines there will also be the new Argentinian labels.