ZCS BLOG

What is the relationship between Tradition and Innovation in the Vitivincial sector? We have asked it to Angela Velenosi, owner of Velenosi Vini, an Ascoli Piceno company operating internationally.

The Velenosi wine-growing company was born in 1984 by the wish of two young entrepreneurs, Angela and Hercules Velenosi. Today the company  is a very remarkable winery that, using state-of-the-art equipment,  produces excellent wine.

Angela Velenosi, welcome to our ZCSBlog dedicated to Innovation. Let's start by asking you, from your precious experience, how Innovation is pervasive in such a loyal and tradition-based industry?

Today, innovation and tradition are synergically linked to grant  success of a company. If this is true in general for Italian companies, in wine sector it is particularly important. Today,in our business everything is innovation. For example you think about agricultural machineries, which today allow a timely and accurate management of the orchard and vineyard, to an unthinkable level until a few years ago. To do business, you could  be opened to innovation and listen the change. However, it doesn’t mean to be deaf to the past. Not all that was done in the vine 50 years ago is valid today, but there are some traditional knowledge, especially those shaped on a particular territorial context, which continue to have an important value.

How New Technologies Can Strengthening  and Improving Made In Italy?

Today Made in Italy is  vital to give us a differential advantage in a competitive and aggressive world. The most obvious example is Chinese viticulture, a very recent production reality, which  is already quantitatively bigger than the Italian one. Technologies allow us to maintain our competitive advantage not only in production, but also in communicating our value.Let’s think about how the internet and all the intelligent devices, connected to it, help us to come in daily contact, even with very distant markets. We  have agents  all over the world that I hear very frequently, unthinkable only a few years ago.

You are the Queen of Piceno’s Wines. How do you value, in your territory, the state of the art about traceability and about the defense of your corporate brand?

Unfortunately, we have come to a point where defending a brand is a taboo, which raises many issues. For example: since 1998 I have produced a wine called Rêve, and this year a Californian company asked us not to use this name, because they also have a similarly named wine. Imagine changing  name to your 19-year-old son! Clearly a brand isn’t  just a name, it's a fact of identification, of customer relationship and company history. Velenosi has protected this brand, but only in Italy, and today we are in conflict with this overseas competitor to defend our 19 years-old brand.

In the future, how do you imagine the vineyard and the winery?

The vineyard still holds to the ground. For this, our progress will be always linked to the mandatory laws of nature: you can gather once a year and it is not possible to govern the climate, the rain, and everything that prepares a harvest. We surely have more tools to improve the results by reducing the impact of chemistry both in vineyard and in winery, enabling us to produce more ecologically. Sincerely today, evolution and innovation are too fast, risking to become an economic hub for small and medium companies. In the winery and in the Vineyard tomorrow, I imagine a more innovation at the reach of everyone.

Who is Angela Velenosi? For over 30 years she has been an entrepreneur in the wine sector. In 1984 she founded the Velenosi Vini. In 1990 she received the first very important acknowledgment, by joining the national association "Le Donne del vino". In 2011 he was named “Work Knight”, the only woman in wine industry obtaining this high honor from the President of the Republic. In September 2013 she is appointed President of “Consorzio Tutela Vini Piceni”. In 2015 she represented the Marche region as a "testimonial" for the wine sector, during Expo 2015 in Milan. Many industrial and national magazines  devote a lot of space to this producer of Ascoli Piceno. In television, there are several interviews with Tg1 Economia and Tg3. She loves sport; In spite of her challenging working days, she can take time to run. She has  already run during 10 marathons between New York, Belino Paris and London.