Sandro Veronesi is bullish about wine.
At 66, the billionaire head of a global retail hosiery and fashion empire—encompassing Calzedonia, Intimissimi and more—is also one of Italy’s largest wine merchants. And he can’t get enough vino.
He and his youngest son, Federico, now 33, launched the first Signorvino flagship wine shop and restaurant in 2012, in the heart of Milan. Since then, the chain has boomed to 40 stores in Italy, with outposts in Paris and Prague.
Over the past decade, the father-and-son team has purchased three Italian wine estates and started another two. They are still looking for more buying opportunities in prestigious Italian vineyards.
“In wine, there’s a lot of pessimism now. But I don’t believe it,” says Veronesi over lunch at the family’s Hotel Veronesi Torre, a renovated 16th century monastery and farm, complete with a Signorvino, that sits next to their modern corporate headquarters outside Verona. “For the things that please people and make them happy, like wine, there will always be a market.”
Signorvino represents just a fraction of what’s under Veronesi’s Oniverse corporate umbrella. Still, it boasts about $100 million in annual turnover from retail sales, restaurants, wine classes and dinners. It’s a hit with Italians and visitors. One in five customers is an American tourist.
Yet the company has put on hold any plans to open Signorvino stores in the United States, where it already has retail fashion stores. The reasons given for the hesitancy include uncertainty over U.S. tariffs on European wines, restrictive alcohol laws for wine producers acting as retailers and difficulties finding qualified staff.
“It’s always a dream,” says Veronesi of Signorvino in the U.S. “But times are not easy.”
Veronesi, who is surprisingly understated and softspoken for a modern-day mogul, has seen other tight situations. He and his three sons built most of the family fortune—earning a place on Forbes’ The World’s Billionaires list, with an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion—during years of economic slowdown in Italy.
He’s done it, he says, by creating concepts “that are simple and easy to remember” and by “understanding what the customer wants.”
Beyond that, he says, “We work with our heads and our hearts.”
The “heart” part of wine started during Veronesi’s childhood in a farming town in the Valdadige region between Verona and Trento. There, as a school boy, he worked winegrape harvests, picking the local red variety Enantio.
“The farmers paid me 30 lira [less than 2 cents] an hour, and I loved it,” he recalls. “I’ve always had this love for the culture of wine.”
Today, Signorvino stocks a bottling of the obscure variety among its more than 2,000 labels: Cantina Roeno’s Enantio Valdadige from the Terradeiforti DOC.
Veronesi’s business career began after he earned his bachelor’s degree in business in the mid-1980s and went to work for his father-in-law at his hosiery producer, Golden Lady.
At 27, he launched the retailer Calzedonia for legwear and beachwear because “I saw that margins were bigger in retail.” Through stores, he reasoned, he could better understand consumer tastes and, by adopting a strategy of vertical integration from production to retail sales, keep prices down.
Veronesi left Golden Lady in the 1990s to expand Calzedonia. He subsequently launched Intimissimi for lingerie and underwear and Tezenis for clothing and homewear for men, women and children. In 2009, his group bought a majority stake in Falconeri, specializing in popularly priced cashmere. Today, the fashion companies encompass a total of 3,000 stores, owned directly or franchised, in more than 50 countries.
The “heart” part of Oniverse’s entry into wine world came from Federico and his father’s passion for wine and cooking. “At the time, all the wine shops in Italy were very old-style,” Veronesi says. “Our idea was to do a younger concept—a hybrid wine shop and restaurant.”
Signorvino’s success has been fueled by Italians’ exploration of their own country; the stores represent Italy’s 20 regions with wines from small to midsize producers. “People go on vacation in Puglia and, when they return home, they want to find Puglia wines,” Veronesi explains as an example.
The role of the salesperson is very important at Signorvino, he elaborates: “Fifty percent of the people who come into our stores have only a vague idea of the kind of wine they want.”
As evidence of Veronesi’s attentiveness to customers, Signorvino even modified its original Italy-only model two years ago, bending to demand for Champagne by adding a stock of bottlings from small growers and branded houses.
In 2015, as Signorvino expanded, the family bought its first winery. Called Tenimenti Leone, it sits within the Rome appellation, which Federico calls underrated. The winery’s white “Tore,” made from the indigenous Bellone grape, is his father’s favorite lunchtime wine.
The Veronesi family followed up by buying land in northwestern Sardinia—including abandoned vineyards for Vermentino, Cannonau and other indigenous grapes—to create Podere Guardia Grande. “A big company like ours can invest to create more important labels by improving quality,” says Federico.
In the last two years, the family has bought a pair of quality wineries that lacked next-generation succession: First the modern, up-and-coming La Giuva in a remote, high-altitude area of Valpolicella and then Bucci, one of the Marche’s leading producers of white wine from Verdicchio.
“We have always looked for wineries that were leaders in their areas and that have an identity,” says Federico.
Each of the estates has its own team led by a local enologist; Bucci and Tenimenti Leone are certified organic. “We don’t believe in standardization of wines,” Federico says. “We want each winery to have its wine with its own flavors and scents.”
Their latest creation is set in in Veronesi’s native Trentino and has involved planting high-altitude, goat-grazing lands with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for a Trento appellation classic method sparkling wine called ERT 1050. The first vintage, 2022, is set to be released this fall.
“There’s a big demand in Italy for quality classic-method bubbles,” says Federico. “And in Trento, there is not enough production for demand.”
At the same time, the family is seeking even more high-profile estates, from Barbaresco to Bolgheri. “There’s a lot of places for sale now,” says Veronesi, who sees opportunity despite declines in global wine consumption.
“There is a human need for sharing and being with friends,” he says. “And when we pass this moment focused on artificial intelligence and virtual communication, people will return to real experiences and want to live better. And wine is part of that.”
