Building on brand Italia

Marianne Fernandez speaks to Luca Serena of Serena Wines to find out more about their business and the world of Italian sparkling wines

Luca Serena Serena Wines

What is the story of your company? How did it all start?

The Serena family started their wine business back in 1881, with Pietro Serena, who sold wine in wooden barrels in the province of Treviso. Adolfo Serena, later, decided to expand their market with wine in bottle and he build new company’s headquarters to reach his aim.

In the 70s, Adolfo’s sons, Giorgio and Gerardo, developed a new way to trade wine: steel kegs, which were a more practical solution to cover the catering market.

In the 90s, they diversified their wines with the introduction of new labels and new brands: Terra Serena, Ville d’Arfanta and Vigne Verdi.

With the new millennium, the family expanded their trade abroad and created new brands, which increased their business significantly; that’s why they decided to change headquarters in the heart of the Prosecco area. In the same period they entered the champagne market by purchasing a maison de champagne in Reims.

How many employees do you have at the moment?

We have now 78 employees, we are an expanding company.

Your website says that you improved in the 1990s – what were those improvements and are many of them still in place today?

In the 90s the two brothers decided to create new brands to make a distinction of the wide variety of wines: Terra Serena, Ville d’Arfanta and Vigne Verdi. Since then the company has always done research to improve its image and to find the best labels to identify its wines.

Today we have even more brands: Corte delle Calli, Costaross and Serenello. Every line reaches different consumers, for different occasions.

How are your products differentiated from others on the market? Would you call it a saturated market and if so what do you do to stand out?

Given that Prosecco is a world famous phenomenon and the wine business in general is a growing field, we can say that it’s a crowded and competitive market, in which you need to pursue quality and commitment to stand out. We do so thanks to our experienced employees, who work hard every day to maintain high quality standards of all our labels, in particular of the crown jewel of our brands: Ville d’Arfanta, a line of wines produced with the grapes of our estate on the Prosecco hills.

What is your global reach?

Our brands are present in a lot of countries. From Europe to Oceania, including America, Africa and Asia. We aim to share the best of 'Made in Italy.'

With this in mind, what are the challenges and opportunities for brands such as yourselves within the current market?

A challenge that we are facing is making people understand that Prosecco is a high quality sparkling wine, perfect for any occasion, easy to drink and affordable to any consumer.

An opportunity for our brand is the trade of wine in PET (one-way) kegs, being this a handy and durable solution, easy to transport and dispose. Sparkling wine is more and more used in mixology all around the world, and our kegs suit the purpose in fact they maintain the quality, the characteristics and the temperature of the wine.

Speaking generally, which are the interesting markets for your brand? Is there anywhere you are looking to break to in the coming months and years?

Of all the countries in which we sell our wines, our business in North and East Europe is doing very well.

We are working to improve and enlarge our trade in Japan, we see the Land of the Rising Sun as an opening market ready to consume our products.

What about the role of social media? How do you engage with a younger demographic?

We think that social media helps the consumer feel closer to us and get in contact with us, especially the young, who use digital platforms for a significant part of their free time. On Instagram and Facebook we like to tell our story by sharing videos and photos of our work and products, by promoting events to which we’ll participate and by publishing our sponsorships.

 

10 October 2018