DiVò Pret a Porter: the pinnacle of Terre Gaie winery’s innovation
Terre Gaie, which has always been committed to exalting the Euganean Hills’ local values, introduces a new line of wines with extremely innovative packaging (375 ml aluminum bottle, indestructible, light, and completely recyclable) and leaves the door open for new ways of interpreting wine without betraying its origin.
There are personal life stories that could be turned into fantastic movie scripts. These are the stories about conquering incredibly difficult barriers, as well as falls and restarts, that radiate authenticity. Among them is Salvatore Lovo, the owner of Terre Gaie, one of the most intriguing and innovative businesses in the picturesque Euganean Hills. The youngest of seven children in a household that Salvatore defines as “poor” with genuine sincerity.
“Yes, it is pointless to deny reality” Salvatore says, “my family was poor even in a situation of perfect dignity. Dad, a nearly two-meter-tall man, was a sharecropper with two hectares of land and a few dairy cows for the family’s needs. He worked as a porter at the agricultural consortium and the sugar factory to make ends meet. It takes a lot of effort to support a family. He was a very serious man: I only saw him laugh a few times. For him, the needs of his family came first. The most important thing he taught me? Respect and politeness. “Be quiet and speak only when others have finished talking”: this is what he often told us at the table, when his whole family was gathered. As a result, we were a poor family, but he believed that being polite and genuine were essential qualities, and that, above all, one should never be embarrassed of one’s identity.”
“I owe my passion for wine – for oenology in particular – to my mother” continues Salvatore. “She made me carry baskets with lunch for my father and my brothers who worked in the social cellar”.
“One day, when I was eleven years old, I had to hide from the winery manager. My father told me that if he had spotted my presence, we may have gotten into trouble. I saw the man with the black coat and white beard and, in my imagination, he immediately drew up a picture of immense authority. I asked my father what it meant to be a director: he answered that the man studied a lot of oenology in order to become the cellar manager, and he was now a wine doctor. That description hit me so deeply that I knew right away that that would be my job”.
A promise that Salvatore Lovo made to himself at the age of eleven and which he managed to keep by overcoming the many economic difficulties and finally graduating in 1975 from the prestigious “Giovan Battista Cerletti” wine school in Conegliano.
A long time has passed from that diploma and Salvatore Lovo has gone through a wide range of professional experiences since then. The most significant journey is without a doubt the one that began in 2005, the year Terre Gaie was founded.
“The project evolved over time” Salvatore recalls, “due not only to the growth of my own experience as a consultant at prominent Italian vineyards, but also, and most of all, to my daughter Silvia’s desire to push me toward the establishment of our own firm. Without forgetting my wife Rita: Terre Gaie would not have been possible without her priceless assistance”.
Today we are introducing Terre Gaie’s most recent challenge, which is also their most daring one in terms of the highly innovative spirit it contains: the new DiVò line, which consists of four wines packaged in innovative 375 ml aluminum bottles that are unbreakable, light, and completely recyclable. A new frontier not only in terms of packaging, but also in terms of wine consumption. DiVò is capable of pushing the frontiers of consumption methods while maintaining complete respect for the product’s quality and origins.
“I would have never put the Terre Gaie signature on a line of wines that was not completely aligned with our production philosophy, which is constantly oriented to optimize the quality of the raw material” Salvatore says. The raw material is the result of the continuous engagement of 51 winegrowers operating in the most appropriate terroirs of the Euganean Hills. “We have a strong working connection with them, and we’ve established a continuous line of communication that allows us to keep a closer eye on all of the manufacturing processes. In reality, for us, the most important goal is to ensure that our wines adhere to the true and original essence of the Euganean Hills”.
And it was in this spirit that the DiVò Pret a Porter line was born: while playing with the term “divo”, its name still wants to emphasize the origin of the grapes, specifically Vò Euganeo. The line currently includes four wines: Rosé (Pinot Nero and Cabernet Sauvignon) and Dry (Glera and Chardonnay) bubbles, as well as the international classics Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.
