DIEGO RALLO
The wine company “Diego Rallo & Figli” was founded by Diego Rallo, born in 1830 in the Marsala neighbourhood of Bottino from a family with strong maritime traditions. After obtaining his Master Mariner licence, he bordered a ship part of the Ingham-Whitaker fleet and acquired wine trading experience. While working for the Florio business, he learned how to make “Marsala” wine and around 1860 he decided to start his own company with his own brand; during the same year, in the San Francesco di Paola neighbourhood near the port, he built his winery, his home, wine grottos, warehouses for the coopers and planted his vineyards. The location was ideal, near the port and various points of supply, and when the railway reached Marsala in 1880, the facilities were directly connected to the line.
Diego Rallo selected the grapes carefully, he personally supervised the wine making process and suggested improvements to the ageing techniques demonstrating great entrepreneurial ability from the early stages. To secure the amount of grapes needed for his business, he paid vineyard owners an advance, as the British did; this gave him the right to check the production and intervene with suggestions. He chose to grow his vines on his land in the Spagnola and Birgi areas.
He aged his wines in Slavonian and Burgundy oak barrels. Following his death, his sons Giacomo and Antonio started a modernisation process of the production facilities and conquered new South American markets. After a long successful period, due to the fierce competition and unfair practices from other producers, in 1989 the Rallo family decided to close down the business and the brand was sold first to “Wax e Vitale”, a company from Genoa, and then to ALVIS Spa, who bought also some of the warehouses of the Ingham-Whitaker establishment and in 1998 sold the historic brand to “famiglia Vesco”. The most renowned varieties of Rallo “Marsala” such as “Superiore Secco S.O.M.”, “Vergine Soleras Riserva 12 anni”, and “Vergine 1860” are still exported today. But “Rallo” history is not over yet. In 1993, Giacomo Rallo, the last heir to the Rallo family estate, decided to start over; having acquired most of the old production facilities, he created a new company with the brand “Donnafugata”.