About the Seller
Years as a collector: +30
Country: Italy
Number of sales on ShareWine: 245
Favourite regions or grapes: Pinot Noir for sparkling or Nebbiolo for red
One sentence describing your approach to wine: Don’t buy labels, buy wines
Your Wine Journey
How did your interest in wine begin?
My passion for wine began more than thirty years ago. Wine was always part of my family, and my family had been collecting wine for years, but at the time I was neither particularly curious nor passionate about it. Everything changed one evening in a Michelin-starred restaurant. My father asked me to choose the wine, and when the sommelier started asking me very specific questions: which grape variety I preferred, what kind of aging, what structure I was looking for, and whether I preferred a particular region, such as Burgundy, I realized how little I knew. I felt completely out of my depth, and that feeling stayed with me. It was the moment I decided I had to learn.
I started reading, studying, tasting and buying different wines, trying to understand what made each one different; the grape variety, the terroir, the exposure and the aging. Over time, that curiosity became a passion, the passion became a collection, and the collection eventually became a tradition that I am now happy to pass on to my children.
Is there a particular bottle or experience that truly ignited your passion?
It wasn’t a particular bottle, label or even a specific taste that ignited my passion for wine. It was more a need to learn and, in a way, a need to prove myself. After that experience with the sommelier, I wanted to go back to that restaurant and choose a wine with the same confidence and conviction with which my father had chosen his.
It was never about choosing the most expensive bottle. My father had the ability to select wines that very few people could truly understand, wines chosen for their uniqueness, character and flavor and trust me, restaurants could immediately recognize that.
Now, after more than thirty years I have a collection of over 2,300 bottles, ranging from 1929 to the current vintage. The oldest is a Château d’Yquem from 1929, rebottled in the late 1990s. This is the reason why I opened my ShareWine account because I would like to give other people the opportunity to discover and enjoy vintage wines at accessible prices.
How would you describe your personal wine philosophy?
My philosophy is simple: don’t buy labels, buy wine. We often choose famous labels because of the name, curiosity, or even the status that comes with opening a prestigious bottle. But after tasting almost all the great names, I’ve learned that beyond a certain price point, you are often paying more for collecting and status than for what is actually in the glass.
You don’t need to spend a fortune to drink great wine. I have some fantastic producer friends in Piemonte and Champagne whose wines, if they were better known, could compete in a blind tasting with some of the greatest Barolos and Champagnes. At the end of the day, making great wine requires passion, and I believe that genuine passion is something that cannot simply be bought or replaced by a famous name.
Your Collection
How have you built your collection over the years?
Building a collection of wines from all over the world takes time and, above all, patience. I built mine by constantly exploring, being curious and being open to trying new things. Every journey, whether close to home, in France and Europe or much further away in places like Namibia, Indonesia or the United States, has always been an opportunity to discover new wines and producers.
Wine is often associated mainly with the Old World, especially Italy and France, but I believe it is important to remain open to new regions and emerging producers. A long stay in the United States, for example, gave me a real appreciation for Californian wines, particularly for their structure and their complex bouquet of red fruits. Some people may find them too sweet, but behind that apparent sweetness there can be remarkable complexity.
Which regions, grapes, or vintages matter most to you, and why?
I’m not particularly attached to one specific region or grape variety. I’m open to everything, because I always say that the world of wine is so vast that the more we study and taste, the more we realize how little we actually know. When it comes to vintages, however, I’m much more emotionally connected to those that carry happy memories for me. I often look for wines from the birth years of my children, my wife, close friends, or people who have played an important role in my life.
There is something very special about a person and a bottle being born in the same year. Over the decades, that bottle may have passed from one owner to another, perhaps sitting quietly in different cellars, waiting for someone to finally open it. And then, 20, 30, 40 or even 50 years later, you and that bottle meet again and you become the person who finally opens it.
To me, that is something truly unique. For me, opening a wine like that is not simply opening a bottle, it is opening a piece of history. And I love giving people wines from their own birth year, because it creates an emotional connection that goes far beyond the wine itself.
How do you store and ship your bottles?
Our wine is stored in an underground cellar on our property in Northern Italy, where the bottles are kept in excellent conditions. When I ship a bottle, I always use secure packaging and, above all, fast shipping.
This is something that is very important to me because I’m also a wine buyer myself. When I spend €400 on a bottle, I want to have it the next day. When you decide to buy a wine, you usually want to enjoy it in that moment, you don’t want to wait one or two weeks. That’s why I always aim to give my customers the same experience I expect when I buy wine: secure packaging and delivery within 24–48 hours whenever buying rare bottles.
Selling on ShareWine
Why did you choose to sell wine on ShareWine?
I chose ShareWine because it gave me access to a market that was completely new to me. For example, the idea of being able to sell my bottles directly to collectors in countries such as Denmark was very attractive.
I had previously sold through national auction houses and other online platforms, but my experience with ShareWine has been quite different. It is much more direct, immediate and efficient, with lower fees and an experience that is accessible to both buyers and sellers.
I find it to be a simple, safe and transparent way to connect collectors directly, and I often share my positive experience with friends and other collectors. In fact, I encourage them to open up their collections and make their bottles available through ShareWine.
What do you enjoy most about selling on ShareWine?
There isn’t one single thing I enjoy most; it’s the whole experience. One of the biggest advantages for me is how quickly and easily I can list a bottle. If I decide that a bottle is going to be sold, I can upload it and have the listing online in about 40 seconds. That is invaluable to me because I simply don’t have time to answer hundreds of questions or wait days for an auction house to approve a listing.
I also really appreciate the visibility the platform gives to the bottles and the quality of its customer base, which is knowledgeable and demanding.
And finally, payment speed is a major advantage. With some smaller online auction houses, payments can take 10 to 14 days, whereas with ShareWine, once the bottle is delivered, I usually receive the money in my account within 48 hours. Fast listing, excellent exposure and fast payment make the whole experience extremely efficient.
You have achieved close to 250 sales on the marketplace. What do you think drives your popularity?
What matters most to me is that the people who buy from me are satisfied with their experience.
My goal has always been to give people access to vintage wines that can be difficult to find, partly because of the personal connection I have with older vintages myself. If people keep coming back and buying from me, I take that as a sign that they are happy with what I offer.
In my own small way, I see people enjoying the wines they find through me, and that’s what makes me happy. So I’ll simply continue doing what I do: making people happy through wine.
Your Recommendations
Which wines do you most enjoy selling from your collection, and what makes them special?
The wines I most enjoy selling are mainly Champagne, particularly vintages from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. What makes them special to me is everything I associate with the importance of a vintage.
These are wines that can be extremely difficult to find today, and I enjoy giving people access to them. Sometimes, I’m lucky enough to help someone find their own birth year or a meaningful vintage and reconnect with a bottle that has been waiting for them for decades. That, for me, is what makes selling these wines so rewarding.
Do you have a good tip for buyers looking for their next bottle?
I don’t really have a tip, but I do have a trip to suggest: travel, explore and discover new wineries. Recommending one label over another is ultimately a matter of personal taste, and with wine, taste is always subjective. My advice is to try as many different bottles as possible.
In Italy, just as in France, we are lucky to have so many producers, including small family-owned wineries that are often still relatively unknown. In Piedmont, for example, within just five or six kilometers, you can find ten, fifteen or even twenty different producers.
For me, discovering new wineries, meeting the people behind the wines and learning about their passion is one of the most rewarding parts of the wine world.
Which underrated region or vintage do you think more people should discover?
In Italy, I would say Alta Langa in Piemonte. I think it is still underestimated compared with Champagne and even compared with other Italian sparkling wine regions. There are some excellent producers making wines with great elegance, complexity and ageing potential, often at much more accessible prices.
What I find particularly interesting is that you can discover producers who are still relatively unknown but are making wines that can be extremely exciting. It’s another perfect example of my philosophy: don’t buy the label, buy the wine.
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