This is a story that begins in the early years of the nineteenth century, when Dr Mario Odero, Genoese by birth, decided to change his life and leave England, where he was in the coal trade between Italy and England, to return to his native land.
Once back in Genoa he did not want to live in the city, so he picked out the Oltrepò Pavese area, and the town of Casteggio in particular, as a possible place to settle down, thanks to the presence of some relatives that had come from Veneto and started an entrepreneurial business in the nearby commune of Montebello. At the end of the First World War he bought the Frecciarossa estate and settled there with his family.
What spurred Mario Odero to devote himself to the world of wine was the intent to take his wine, and the whole of the Oltrepò Pavese area with it, outside national boundaries. The Odero family’s first commercial intuition was to sell wine in bottles, which was a peculiar characteristic, seeing that at the time wine was sold in bulk or in demijohns. If Mario Odero was the one who thought up and promoted the Frecciarossa winery, his son Giorgio, born in 1901, was the driving force.
Having graduated in Agricultural Science from Milan University with a boundless passion and considerable preparation in the wine-making field, he turned Frecciarossa into one of the great Italian wineries during the post-war period. Straight after graduation, Mario Odero handed over the reins of the winery to the promising Giorgio who managed not only the production but also the marketing of the wines as well as relations with foreign customers. Immediately after the war there began a slow process of adapting the agricultural capacity of the farm to viticulture, abandoning the cultivation of wheat or hay, though maintaining unchanged the spirit of the farm, that, with animals, crops and people makes for a particularly warm and welcoming atmosphere.
In 1920 the extension of the cellars was begun (the central nucleus dates from the 1700s), continuing until 1930. Thanks to Mario and Giorgio Odero’s careful business policy during the early thirties, the Viceroys of the Indies made Frecciarossa their official supplier. Frecciarossa also obtained the warrant of supplier to the Italian royal family which allowed them to raise the royal standard on the premises. What also added to the prestige of the winery was its participation in numerous international contests, such as the fair in New York or London.
Confident of Mario’s experience in the United Kingdom with the coal trade, Frecciarossa wines were to be found on the tables of the great transatlantic lines that connected Europe with England and America and from 1934, once Prohibition had been lifted, Frecciarossa wines entered the US with the national exportation mark no.19 (19th Italian product to enter the US). In the 1980s Giorgio Odero’s daughter Margherita, together with her husband Carillo Radici, started a project to re-launch the brand.
In 1990 the cellars were renovated and adapted to modern vinification techniques, with the consultancy of Dr Franco Bernabei and under the guide of Margherita Radici Odero, and the vineyards were replanted. It was in 1996, with Pietro Calvi di Bergolo’s entrance into the family, that the commercial line of the winery underwent a notable acceleration, venturing towards foreign markets again with great creative and productive impulse. The awareness of such an authoritative past today is a spur to all those who take part in life at Frecciarossa to always do their best, intent on the most prestigious results.