3' min read
3' min read
In 1877, in Pontassieve, near Florence, the Ruffino cousins realised a new era for wine: the 'ideal wine', at the centre of tables all over the world as a sign of Italian character and good taste, produced by building value around the territory to which Ruffino belongs. Vineyards in the surrounding hills, the transformation into wine in the large local cellars, the bottling in glass produced by the village glassworks, the straw that often wrapped the bottles in flasks woven by the fiascaie, local women who were paid a per diem, one of the first railway lines to enter the company (the tracks are still visible today) thanks to a royal decree, and which allowed the bottles to be loaded into wagons and taken by train to the port of Livorno and from there, thanks to the first steam transatlantic liners, all over the world.
Without knowing it, Ruffino was already implementing almost 150 years ago what is now called 'community welfare'. Clearly, in 2024 at Ruffino, welfare is implemented with different levers, but it is the same guiding spirit that led the Pontassieve-based company to be recently awarded by Generali's Welfare Index, where Ruffino took first place among the best welfare practices in the agricultural sector (where notoriously result bonuses or welfare services for employees and 'induced activities' are the exception).
The assumption on which welfare is based at Ruffino in 2024, about 300 employees, average age 45, is that wine is identity and civilisation and a successful interaction between man and nature. An interaction, however, that is fragile and delicate from the point of view of both consumption (wine is an alcoholic and potentially dangerous beverage) and the environment: this is why programmes such as 'Ruffino Cares', which promotes the principles of sustainable production and cultural education on drinking, are fundamental.
"By 2025,' Ruffino's personnel manager Emanuele Rossini tells us, 'all wines will be certified organic. More and more energy is self-produced with solar panels, a large part of the waste water is purified and reused, attention to waste sorting is high, and the impact of CO2 is constantly being reduced. We want our environment, in which almost all of our workers and their families live and which we use to produce wine, to be returned not only not impoverished, but when possible even cleaner and more respected'.
Ruffino has a performance bonus of around three thousand euro, which can be converted in whole or in part into welfare (which is tax-free) and shopping vouchers. For workers who convert the company bonus into welfare, the company adds 10% of its own value to 'give back' to its employees a part of the tax discount recognised by law. In addition, petrol vouchers have been provided in the past to counter the high cost of living.
