THE GRAPPA MANUFACTURER HAS PASSED AWAY AT THE AGE OF 88. HE MOVED TO ANAGNI AS A VERY YOUNG MAN AND LED THE COMPANY FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY UNDER THE BANNER OF CIRCULAR ECONOMY IN THE MOST MODERN SENSE.
A Merit for Labour since 1999, Giuseppe Bonollo represented one of the historical figures of industry in the province of Frosinone. At the age of 88, he died Tuesday, June 20, in the town of Anagni, where as a very young man (23 years old) he had begun operating a factory in the Osteria della Fontana area. An Emilian by birth, he was a descendant of the historic family of distillers from Veneto who began operating in 1908 thanks to the progenitor (and his grandfather) Giuseppe, and in the 1980s he built a factory in the nearby town of Paduni, using advanced technologies and transforming the old structure into a warehouse for aging wine spirits.
Giuseppe Bonollo’s modern vision
In the early 1990s, in the Anagni-Paduni plant, Giuseppe Bonollo had two new production units built, to extract natural tartaric acid and to produce organic fertilizers as the last product of the grape processing, following a modern vision linked to the concept of circular economy. In 1998, in Cisterna di Latina, he had BonOil built, which at that time was one of the large European complexes producing and refining seed oils.
“Generous man,” as the company remembers him
“Generous man.” The company, in a note, remembers him as follows, “Anyone who had anything to do with him testifies to the charisma and great generosity of spirit that distinguished him in human and work relationships. A pillar of our Family and of the Italian distillery sector is missing.”
Distillerie Bonollo, a leading company in the sector
Distillerie Bonollo has four plants in Italy, employing about 130 people. Among the top producers of grappa in the world, the distilleries also hold one of the largest deposits of brandy. Considering alcohol and brandy, average annual volumes are close to 150,000 hectoliters per year: about 40 million bottles. In 1993, he founded the Grappa Documentation Center, named after his father Luigi, to promote the knowledge and popularization of Made in Italy spirits.
Bonollo Distilleries: a bit of history
Distillerie Bonollo was founded in 1908, in the Veneto region of Italy, by Giuseppe Bonollo, founder of the family. In 1918, the business moved to Formigine (Modena), where Luigi Bonollo, son of the founder (one of the other sons is Umberto Bonollo, also an entrepreneur in the distillates sector with an independent business in the province of Padua since 1951), began to focus on distilling Lambrusco pomace. Luigi’s six sons (Giuseppe, Melchiorre, Alberto, Luigi, Vittorio and Abramo) later took over the business. In particular, Giuseppe Bonollo, in 1958, decided to open a plant also in Anagni, in the province of Frosinone. In 1976, Distillerie Bonollo purchased and renovated the distillery in Torrita, in the province of Siena. In 1980, Giuseppe began construction of a second plant in Anagni, Paduni locality, a production facility that would become the largest in Europe. In 2007, Distillerie Bonollo entered the renewable energy sector, and after a few years set up Bonollo Energia Spa, a plant with a production capacity of 12 MWe to produce energy from biomass: about 60 percent from spent pomace supplied by the distilleries themselves. Four types of products were produced: distillates, tartaric acid, fertilizer and electricity. The fourth generation of the family now carries on a tradition with a 100-year history.
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