It’s
Ain’t The Hills of Tuscany, But It’s
Home
Before demographers added “metro”
to the Atlanta Metro Area, the region was
more of a bucolic, farming community, a
stark contrast to today’s gleaming
towers of a cosmopolitan city and its attendant
neighborhoods and suburbs. So it may come
as a surprise to some that there is a winery
located right here in the center of the
Atlanta Metro Area, in the tony Buckhead
neighborhood of all places.
Right
near the intersection of Pharr Road and
Peachtree Street, sits the home of Candoni
Wines, which produces 800,000 cases of wine
annually. If you want to take a look at
the Condoni’s winery and vineyards,
it’s just a short ride south to Hapeville,
where you make a left and go about 4,900
miles to the hills above Modena, Italy.
Admittedly, the executive offices for Candoni
and its sister label, Terra Cotta, are in
the extreme outskirts of the Friuli wine
region, but owner and founder Armando De
Zan has a good reason for this.
“I
love Atlanta,” says the 60-year-old
CEO, who has lived in the city with his
wife Elviana Candoni De Zan since 2000.
“I come to Atlanta in December1996
to interview a broker for our wines. It
was charming and very nice. It was the feeling
I got from the South….I told my wife
that if one day we open an office in Atlanta,
we will live in Atlanta. It is a city of
great morality.”
The
De Zans were quite happy to have their daughters,
Barbara and Catarina (now 25 and 23) attend
and graduate from Christ the King and Marist
schools, but Armando also appreciated the
efficiency of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport
to run his global operation. With the exception
of pollen season, he also enjoys the city’s
mild weather. This makes for a pleasant
home life, but also does not hinder his
torrid international travel schedule, which
is often impeded by weather in places like
New York City and Chicago.
On
the face of it, one might assume that De
Zan’s Atlanta operation is really
an American company created to funnel cheap
Italian wine to an unwitting American market.
While Candoni and Terra Cotta wines are
inexpensive, De Zan can trace his winemaking
roots back to 1865, when his great grandfather,
Giacobbe, planted vines in Italy’s
northeastern Veneto wine region. The De
Zans still produce wine from those vineyards
and manage 900 acres of vines throughout
Italy, including Friuli, Tuscany and Puglia.
In
fact, the United States is not even the
biggest market for De Zan’s wines.
Europe—especially Italy—ranks
number one, with the U.S. a strong second
and the rest of his wines distributed throughout
Asia.
The
De Zans travel back regularly to Italy for
family and business reasons, but having
the headquarters of an Italian winemaking
company six time zones away would be impossible
without a dedicated team close the vines
and the winery. Both daughters now work
for dad, although Barbara is taking time
off to get a business degree in Italy. Armando’s
sister and nephew manage the Italian properties
and he utilizes the services of three full-time
winemakers.
“I
am the CEO of the group. I’m in control
of everything,” De Zan says in his
thick accent. “I am the final decision
maker, but my sister, my wife and nephew
and daughters, we make the decisions all
together.”
Moving
executive operations to the U.S. apparently
has served De Zan well. The company has
quadrupled production since 2003 and sales
are up 17 percent this year despite the
economy. Recently, De Zan has launched a
line of organic wines and an ambitious boxed
wine project.
De
Zan realizes that consumers have embraced
all things labeled organic, but that is
just a happy coincidence for Candoni’s
organic line. “It is super, super
difficult to make the organic wines in Italy,”
De Zan says of the five-year process it
takes to be certified by Suolo e Salute,
one of Italy’s organic certification
agencies.
The
other major innovation for De Zan has been
its new Terra Cotta wines, featuring three-liter
boxes of pinot grigio and cabernet sauvignon
from the Veneto region. Only a few Italian
winemakers have embraced the concept of
putting wine in a box. De Zan says containers
such as boxed wines and screwtops are the
future and cannot be ignored.
“Americans
love the boxed wines,” De Zan said.
Terra Cotta is being tested in 10 U.S. markets,
including New York, Connecticut, New Jersey,
Texas, and, of course, Georgia.
With
the kids out of the house, an observer suggested
that the De Zans would soon sell their Buckhead
residence and retire back to Italy. De Zan
was not so sure.
“I
love Atlanta, but Italy is my country, that’s
true. It’s hard to say where we’ll
[retire to],” De Zan said, as if he
had never contemplated ever leaving his
adopted home. “Atlanta is really in
my heart.”
2007 Candoni, Organic, Pinot Grigio delle
Venezie, Italy
• $10
• Two Thumbs Up
• Fresh, lemony aromas highlighted
with pleasant floral and mineral notes.
Rich for an Italian pinot grigio, but still
offered crisp lemon-lime fruit and ripe
nectarine.
Candoni
Brut Prosecco, Italy
• $15
• Two Thumbs Up
• More Champagne-like than Prosecco,
this bubbly showed aromas of minerals and
toasted almond. Simple flavors of toasted
almond, apple, pear and cantaloupe would
make for an enjoyable aperitif.
2007 Candoni Chianti, Italy
• $10
• Two Thumbs Up
• Pleasant smoky aromas with hints
of black cherry and violets. Simple but
enjoyable flavors of apple skin, tart red
cherry, leather and dry tobacco leaf.
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