18 - «I had a dream: to become a pilot»

Angelo Lo Cilento (Vin Bon e Cilento Wines) talks about his life and his company

Can a man who worked in a bank for 23 years produce excellent wine? Instinctively, one would say no.
But the correct answer is yes, if that man surrounds himself with first-class oenologists. And that is what Angelo Lo Cilento, a Lucanian born in Ferrandina, did in his Vin Bon and Cilento Wine plants, where he gathered the best technicians. Starting from his wife Grazia, who has wine in her blood because she comes from a family of vine-growers from Pisticci (also in Basilicata).
Told this way, the story is no different from that of many other Italians who achieved success in Canada. But the story of Angelo Lo Cilento and his wife Grazia runs parallel to the history of the development of vine-growing and oenology in Canada, and consequently of taste development. A story deserved to be told.
Lo Cilento understood that Canadians were discovering wine, and he produced it. "But always a quality wine," he specifies, "because bad wine can be made with no difficulty, but in five or six months you'd be shutting down your company. I've been here for a quarter of a century. I remained faithful to how our old folks in Southern Italy made wine: something to be respected because it's not only a drink but a food as well. Maybe this is why the ancients offered it to the gods. And it was not a trifle, if you think for a moment to 'Lacrima'. You're a Southerner like myself, so you know how the Lacrima was made and what was its meaning, don't you?"

I don't know how it was made, exactly. But I know that my grandfather took out the bottle of Lacrima only on great occasions and those drinking it did so with great respect.
"And they were right in respecting Lacrima. Now I'll tell you how it was made: first of all it had to be done with Malvasia grapes which, when ripe, flood the fields with its smell. Then, after being cut, the bunches were put into two small, wide-mouthed barrels, hanging from a donkey's yaw. When the barrels were full, the donkey was led to the cellar. The rocking movement of the animal and the weight of the bunches caused the ripest grapes to crush along the way. Here you are: Lacrima was the juice of those grapes that had crushed spontaneously. Juice of pulp alone, no peel, and when it fermented it gave a wine for celebrations."

For one who worked for 23 years in a bank, you display a great familiarity with wine. Had you anything to do in Italy?
"No. I came to Canada when I was 18 and until then I had only attended school. My brother was here, and he said I could easily find a job. But I wanted to enter the Air Force, I loved airplanes, they'd always been my passion. So my family was divided into two camps: on the one hand my parents, and of course my brother, who wanted me to get a civilian job, possibly in Canada. On the other, me, with a fixation for the Air Force. We reached a compromise. I told them I was going to submit two applications at the same time, one as a cadet to Air Force NCO, the other for a visa to Canada. The first to reply was to have me. I thought I had found the perfect solution. On the contrary..."

On the contrary?
"On August 16, 1958, I received two letters. One from the Air Force, accepting my application, the other from the Canadian Embassy, granting me the visa. My mother's intervention was decisive: 'My son,' she told me, 'why are you so obsessed with airplanes? We would be very worried to know you were up there on a machine that can fall down any moment. Forget it, and go to Canada with your brother. Do it for us.' I did it, and here I am."

When you arrived you got a job in a bank.
"No. I was hired by a canned food manufacturing company first. In a few months I had become responsible for a hundred workers. After a couple of years I was offered the opportunity to work for a bank, where I made a career, but despite my job being appreciated I was never able to climb to the top and improve my position. Such things happened at the time."

Mr. Lo Cilento, you sported an Italian family name, and up to 25 or 30 years ago that was not conducive to a quick career. Is it so?
"I don't like to remember things that still hurt me. In a nutshell, I started to look around, and with a friend of mine working in the same bank we bought a Vin Bon franchise, from Alberto Milan. Then we bought some shares and became Milan's partners, and in the end we bought the whole company from him. With my friend, we also bought a big distillery in Mexico, but after a period of joint work we decided to split. He kept the Mexican distillery, I kept Vin Bon, that can be considered my pilot activity, and two years ago added Cilento Wines, that is mostly looked after by my wife. Two of our sons, Antonio, 30, and Filippo, 28, are working with us. The youngest, Marco, 20, is still studying. But he will also join us because this, irrespective of size, will always be a family business."

Let figures speak, Mr. Lo Cilento. How much staff have you got, how much wine do you produce? Can your company's turnover be known?
"I have no secrets. My activity is in full view. Among Vin Bon, Cilento Wines and some 60 franchise stores we have a 200-strong staff. In one year we produce 40,000 12-bottle cartons of wine and 250,000 20-litre casks of must. We have a yearly turnover to the tune of $10 million. When I acquired Vin Bon its turnover was under one million."

Coming to Canada I discovered the habit, mostly present in Italians, to make wine at home. They buy and bottle 'must'. This is a nearly unknown habit in Italy where, eventually, people buy wine in demijohns and bottle it themselves, saving the difference in cost between wholesale and retail. Is this just a matter of saving money?
"Saving also, because one litre of homemade wine produced with our must and bottled comes at no more than two dollars and a half, three dollars maximum, while retail stores sell it for five or even seven dollars. But not only saving, it's also... how can I say... a matter of culture. Our immigrants of the 50s and 60s were mostly peasants, very familiar with wine. What they found here at that time was, I beg your pardon, garbage. To be very kind, we could say it was a mass-market wine. Therefore, fine-taste Italians preferred to make it themselves, and created a market. Imagine, 20 years ago customers purchasing Vin Bon's must were mostly Italians. Now we have 65 percent of Anglo-Saxons, and the rest are Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. We Italians introduced a habit that Anglo-Saxons appreciated. But an important role was also played by those who supplied the must, such as ourselves, selling a quality product that could not but produce good wine."

A revolution of a kind.
"Precisely. But the Canadian government did not stand idle. Seeing how wine consumption was increasing, it qualified its grapes. It discovered that the Niagara Peninsula and British Columbia have a climate ideally suited to vine growing. Thus, in the 80s Ottawa earmarked a $7,000-per-acre subsidy to vine-growers who uprooted old vineyards and planted good vines, especially European varieties such as Merlot, Cabernet, Sauvignon and others. This is why Canada can today boast a classy wine production. I think I gave a considerable contribution to this 'revolution', as you called it, not only because I always strived for quality but also because I taught how to make good wine from must: customers buying must in our stores receive advice and indications on how to get the best results. And it is natural. I say it with modesty but also with pride, that my wines received a lot of international awards in Italy, France and the United Kingdom, as well as in Canada, of course."

Are the grapes you use Canadian, or are they produced elsewhere? I've been told that must, for instance, comes from California.
"Must comes from California because that's the best. But the grapes are coming 100 percent from Ontario. I believe in the oenological future of this country, so much so that I bought a 50-acre vineyard in the Niagara Peninsula, where I produce some very good Ice-wine. And my wines are all VQA-certified (Vintners Quality Alliance)."

A nice form of patriotism.
"It's true. This country gave me a lot, and I try to be grateful. This is why I am among the sponsors of the Canadian Opera Company and of Brock University in St. Catherines, where Canada's first Department of Oenology is being organized. But I remain deeply linked to Italy and to its peasants' culture, and my sons, though born here, speak Italian perfectly. This is not just affection."

What else?
"Look, the way we Italians produce edibles, nobody does. Well, now I have come to the decision of dealing in olive oil: I buy it wholesale from a cousin of mine in Basilicata, bottle it here and sell it at $9 for a 375 millilitre bottle. Be warned: it is extra virgin olive oil with zero acidity, not like those one buys at $3.99 per litre, an absolutely unlikely price for a genuine product. My oil comes from Ferrandina, whence the 'yellow gold' was being exported to the USA as far back as 1923."

Did your company suffer effects of the depression of the past few years?
"I would say no. On the contrary, depression helped us, because the crisis reduced the market for wine but expanded that for must. I told you so: a litre of homemade wine cost, and costs, less than half as much as bottled wine. I can say I have now some problems with the government of Ontario..."

What sort of problems?
"We wanted to put some road signs along the roads leading to the Cilento Wines premises. Initially authorities gave the permit, then they changed their mind. I smell a rat, because along the same roads there are many signs by other companies, well-visible, large, and authorized by the government of Ontario. I am a quiet man, but I can't stand injustice. I appealed, and I'll go to the Courts if necessary, and then I'll call press conferences. I ask for nothing exceptional: just what is granted to others. I too, in my little capacity, gave a contribution to the development of this country: I ask for no gratitude, only a just treatment. I will be inflexible on this."
(Translated by Emanuele Oriano)

Publication Date: 2002-12-22
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2193