Our History

The history of Distillerie Mazzari began in the year 1958. Mr Primo Mazzari, who comes from Russi near Ravenna, used to work as a haulier for some local companies and warehouses. Due to the limited storage capacity and the copious production of fruits in those years, the goods in excesswere thrown away. Aware of this waste, Mr Primo Mazzari decided to collect the exceeding goods and deliver them in a private warehouse in order to produce cider (pulp of mashed fruit), which becomes a raw material with alcohol content for distillation, which was sold at the distilleries nearby.

As at that time the countryside was full of orchards, Mr. Mazzari and his father decided to expand their activity building with the construction of a new cider manufacturing site, moving it from Russi to Sant’Agata sul Santerno (Ravenna), which was considered a strategic point due to the proximity to many fruit companies on the territory.

Whenever the plant was built, Mr Mazzari increased his business of fruit collection and production of cider, in a short time he reached high production levels. In 1960 he also built a small distillation plant but compared to the huge quantity of available raw material, the distillery began not to be sufficient. Therefore he decided to build a second plant with the possibility to process not only fruit but also wine and wine by–products, in order to expand the variety of raw materials and finished products (Wine Distillate, Italian Brandy, Fruit Distillates etc.). The distillation plant was further enhanced and Primo Mazzari become soon a strong competitor among the existing larger distilleries.

“We were the smallest among them and all the competitors were looking for solutions to “destroy” us and put us out of business. But as time went by the opposite happened: we developed, we improved strong and high know-how even from a technological point of view, so that some competitors failed and Distillerie Mazzari passed from a small distillery to be a bigger one. Clear ideas and my father closeness, who was never afraid of debts, were my fortune. The way of thinking of banks towards us changed, so after having known us and having understood that we were reliable people with willingness to work and to build something new and important, they began to grant funding, we were asking for.

In this way we started our business, with lots of debts but proud to do more and more”.

− Primo Mazzari −

In the early seventies Primo Mazzari realized that they needed to work even the wine by-products, like wine lees from which is obtained Alcohol and Calcium Tartrate, intermediate used to produce Natural Tartaric Acid.

Distillerie Mazzari has grown and in 1995 started a partnership with the Lavorazione Sociale Vinacce of Modena, a consortium of the most important wineries in the north of Italy.

In the year 2000 it was decided to build a plant of Natural Tartaric Acid, which was inaugurated the following year. This choice has proved to be a strategically successful, as today the Distillerie Mazzari is a worldwide leader among all the Natural Tartaric Acid producers. In recent years, all the investments are focused on the production of renewable energy, on the continuous optimizations of the production process and the improvement of internal and external environmental conditions.

In July 2017, Distilleria Deta of Barberino Val d’Elsa (Firenze) joined the “Mazzari Group” after the entire share capital was acquired by Distillerie Mazzari. Distilleria Deta‘s operations today focuses mainly on the processing of wine products and by-products (marc, wine lees and wine) for the production of Grappa, Alcohol for food and industrial use, Wine Distillate and Brandy. There is also production of Calcium Tartrate, which constitutes the raw material for the production of Natural Tartaric Acid, as well as grape seeds used by the oil production industry.

During the 2018 two new plants were inaugurated for the production of Anhydrified (Absolute) and Denatured Alcohol.

So from a small plant, built in the year 1958, Distillerie Mazzari has grow up and now is one of the most important worldwide companies in this field.