Gruppo Italiano Vini buys the last share of the Sicilian company Rapitalà

The turnaround was not sudden and the change of pace was in the air for Rapitalà, the large and historic Sicilian company that a few months ago ended up in the meat mincer of a nasty anti-Mafia investigation in the Palermo area. There does not seem to be any correlation with that investigation, which in February involved some of the company's employees, but certainly the Italian Wine Group, an Italian giant in the sector (with over 1,600 hectares of vineyards and 14 wineries owned), which already owned 90% of the company, wanted to make a turnaround: first by buying the missing share to reach total ownership (10%) and then by completely renewing the company's governance. The purchase operation was closed in mid-May but has only now been made public: Nino Caleca, a Palermo-based criminal lawyer who until recently was a magistrate at the Council of Administrative Justice (the Sicilian section of the Council of State), has been appointed at the helm.

What is now Tenute di Rapitalà Spa was founded in 1968 by Hugues Bernard Count de la Gatinais who, together with his wife Gigi Guarrasi, undertook to relaunch the family estates (Gigi was the daughter of the lawyer Vito Guarrasi, in turn heir to a wealthy family of landowners from Alcamo). Today, it consists of 176 hectares of organically managed vineyards in the area that slopes down from Camporeale towards Alcamo, in the province of Palermo.

The company's new board of directors has appointed the Supervisory Board, which is chaired by Giovanni Canzio, the president emeritus of the Court of Cassation, and its members are Bernardo Petralia, former head of the Dap and former Attorney General at the Court of Appeal of Reggio Calabria, and Professor Alessandra Santangelo, researcher in criminal law at the University of Bologna. "The new and growing challenges on national and international markets with which our group is measured on a daily basis," commented Gruppo Italiano Vini President Corrado Casoli and General Manager Roberta Corrà, "require new strategies and entail the search for synergies that increasingly support the development of our brands and their valorisation. The complete acquisition of Rapitalà is therefore part of this vision, with the certainty of continuing the winery's success story".

The company, in a note, expressed 'heartfelt thanks to Laurent Bernard de la Gatinais who, following the acquisition, concludes his long and valuable relationship with Rapitalà, wishing him all the best for his personal and professional future'.