Cantine Bianchi, our distillery, was born in one of the oldest wine-producing areas in Italy, the city of Marsala, where the vine has been the main character for centuries. The warm sun, the calmness of this place and the beauty around it, caught the eye of the Tuscan merchant Leone Bianchi, who has always sold the best Marsala to northern Italy harbours and in 1950 had decided to move to Sicily and start producing Marsala wine.With time Leone started to provide alcohol for Marsala wine producers, launching the first distillery facility in 1955 and still continuing the commerce of wine by ferries he owned. The beautiful fortified courtyard, today home for Bianchi, was owned by the famous family of woodhouse, the one that, in the 18th century, started the Marsala wine production, exporting the product around the world. Leone and john woodhouse have some similarities: they both weren’t from Marsala, but they fell in love with the city and the homonymous wine; they both made this place their home and worked next to the harbour to use this beautiful resource to transport their products; for both of them alcohol was a significant factor for production.
Giuseppe, Leone’s son, amplified the market. While he was producing alcohol, grappa and spirits and selling them to wine producers and merchant in north Italy in big quantities, he also got to the point where he owned 5 tankers, with about 100 workers among land and sea, that operated to reach commercial harbours in all the Mediterrean sea, from Odessa in the black sea and Wiborg in the Baltic sea even to the Angola, in the south.
In 2006 Claudio, Giuseppe’s son, started a new chapter for its business. He was inspired from the desire to bring all the history, knowledge and experience collected in so many years inside a bottle of finished product. With referee from the previous production of spirits, he bottles for the first time distillates of excellence and obtains the acknowledgement of two important geographic area references: Sicily’s grappa and Marsala’s grappa. In the Christmas of 2008, Brandy “Leone Bianchi” extra old is bottled for the first time, obtained from a stock jealously kept by Leone that also inspired the creation and production of “Grappa del fondatore”, dedicated to him. In the tiny artisanal distillery, inside the woodhouse baglio, is produced the unique amaro Segesta, an alchemy of herbs and Sicilian essences at 33° alcohol degrees, created with the recipe of wine maker (oenologist) Vito Giannone, handed down from 1958.
Vendor Biography
Cantine Bianchi, our distillery, was born in one of the oldest wine-producing areas in Italy, the city of Marsala, where the vine has been the main character for centuries. The warm sun, the calmness of this place and the beauty around it, caught the eye of the Tuscan merchant Leone Bianchi, who has always sold the best Marsala to northern Italy harbours and in 1950 had decided to move to Sicily and start producing Marsala wine.With time Leone started to provide alcohol for Marsala wine producers, launching the first distillery facility in 1955 and still continuing the commerce of wine by ferries he owned. The beautiful fortified courtyard, today home for Bianchi, was owned by the famous family of woodhouse, the one that, in the 18th century, started the Marsala wine production, exporting the product around the world. Leone and john woodhouse have some similarities: they both weren’t from Marsala, but they fell in love with the city and the homonymous wine; they both made this place their home and worked next to the harbour to use this beautiful resource to transport their products; for both of them alcohol was a significant factor for production.
Giuseppe, Leone’s son, amplified the market. While he was producing alcohol, grappa and spirits and selling them to wine producers and merchant in north Italy in big quantities, he also got to the point where he owned 5 tankers, with about 100 workers among land and sea, that operated to reach commercial harbours in all the Mediterrean sea, from Odessa in the black sea and Wiborg in the Baltic sea even to the Angola, in the south.
In 2006 Claudio, Giuseppe’s son, started a new chapter for its business. He was inspired from the desire to bring all the history, knowledge and experience collected in so many years inside a bottle of finished product. With referee from the previous production of spirits, he bottles for the first time distillates of excellence and obtains the acknowledgement of two important geographic area references: Sicily’s grappa and Marsala’s grappa. In the Christmas of 2008, Brandy “Leone Bianchi” extra old is bottled for the first time, obtained from a stock jealously kept by Leone that also inspired the creation and production of “Grappa del fondatore”, dedicated to him. In the tiny artisanal distillery, inside the woodhouse baglio, is produced the unique amaro Segesta, an alchemy of herbs and Sicilian essences at 33° alcohol degrees, created with the recipe of wine maker (oenologist) Vito Giannone, handed down from 1958.