Mastroberardino
A centuries-old history, for a company with an eye to the future
To find the first traces of the activity of the Mastroberardino family in the current headquarters of Atripalda, near Avellino, we must go back to the mid-eighteenth century. From that moment on, the family began the cultivation of the vine that made it one of the leading exponents of Italian viticulture and winemaking.
“My family has been working in this field for ten generations, without interruption, and it is recognized as the guardian of the autochthonous varieties of Irpinia and Campania”, says with a touch of pride Piero Mastroberardino, today at the helm of the company. Already in 1878 the great-grandfather Angelo had begun to cross the borders of Italy, bringing Campania wines into Europe. His son Michele went further, and as a true precursor of the global market, he reached North America and Latin America. “Today, as in the past, the company has maintained a strong international vocation”, confirms the president, “with our presence in 60 countries and a worldwide recognizability of our brand”.
With such an important heritage, Mastroberardino could not disregard the research and the work of enhancement of native grape varieties: Aglianico, Fiano, Greco, Falanghina, Piedirosso and Coda di Volpe, which origins date back to the Greek colonization and the Roman civilization. An extraordinary example of this careful work of rediscovering the roots of the Campania Felix is the project that since 1996 involves the archaeological site of Pompeii: here Mastroberardino has brought back to life the many small plots used to grow vines before the great eruption. From this painstaking work a wine was born, which was not by chance named Villa dei Misteri, in homage to the homonymous Villa that contains some of the best preserved wonders of the ancient city.
Respect and veneration towards a thousand-year history and tradition do not prevent Mastroberardino from being a dynamic and modern company, with an eye to the future and above all a great attention to the context in which it operates. “We adopt a company policy aimed at reconciling the economic targets with the social and environmental needs of our territory, with a view to sustainability”, underlines Piero Mastroberardino. “We place at the center the care of the relationships with our stakeholders: collaborators, suppliers, customers, partners, community and local institutions, implementing concrete actions and cooperating for a common and lasting creation of value”. An attention that takes shape starting from the adoption of careful and responsible production methods: “We have consolidated procedures with which we detect and keep under control, in addition to fuel and energy consumption, emissions into atmosphere, water discharges, dross and waste, and their impact on the territory, on water resources and on air”, concludes the president, in a transparent and shared way, as evidenced by the new website www.mastrogreen.com, where the company declares objectives and practices implemented to reach a true environmental sustainability of its productions.
This year we’ll celebrate many important historical anniversaries for the company. The first is the 140 years since the start of the wine exportation activities in the world, which began in 1878, a year which, although not representing the company’s founding date, is reported in the brand. The second, is the 50 years from the 1968 vintage of Taurasi, which placed the Aglianico variety at the center of international criticism and allowed wine lovers to discover the Irpinia of wine.