When I finally decided to take a closer look at the story of the Mastroberardino family business, I was aware that I would have had to overcome a significant obstacle: in the widespread perception the major affirmations go back in memory to about the middle of last century. They tell about the work of the generation that from 1945 onwards has designed the rebirth of the ancient viticulture of Irpinia and Campania – first and foremost in the figure of its most experienced, indefatigable paladin and custodian, Antonio Mastroberardino – saving it from extinction to which it seemed condemned following the cataclysm of the last great world conflict.
The knowledge of what this family represented before that period is instead much more nebulous and vague, yet, retracing it, it is at least as bright and compelling. This explains the determination with which that generation embarked on the post-war recovery path, animated exactly by the ambition to bring back the splendor from which it originated. Its exponents sought on the one hand to pay homage to the work of the giants on whose shoulders they had managed to hoist themselves after the disastrous fall of 1945, on the other to find strength and conviction in an entrepreneurial project that in those years seemed not to offer scenarios of acceptable economic sustainability.
That sign, “MIMA”, which he had kept as a distinctive emblem in the family insignia in homage to his father’s memory, today lives new vigor, despite the change in the terms that make up the acronym: I chose it to sign the “Museo d’Impresa Mastroberardino Atripalda“, a place where the testimonies of this story find hospitality.
The museum is housed in a space created within the ancient family cellars, where the actors of this story have passed the baton by living continuously over the past three centuries, electing it to their headquarters, overcoming difficulties and repairing even profound fractures. Apt to cause the dissolution of that plot, as in 1893, 1914, 1932, 1945 …
On the contrary, those threads have mysteriously been re-knotted, and with greater vigor, at every turning point , at every trauma, along the path of a single, sometimes tormented, always compelling navigation, which has crossed with outburst the finish line of ten family generations.
I hand over this little treasure, in turn, to those, among the youngest of the family, who intend to continue exploring. To them I feel the pride and the duty to entrust, with the responsibilities, also the joys, the satisfactions, the ruminations on the future destinies of a prestigious name of a family business that has had the strength not to succumb and to always explore new and challenging horizons.
And, at the turn of the third century of family history, as well as at the end of the hundred and forty years since the start of the first shipments abroad of the Casa Mastroberardino wines, I deliver it – it is a wish – to a wider public, convinced that this story cannot remain the exclusive patrimony of the descendants of those pioneers, that must be shared, lived together, handed down.
I trust you can be fascinated. As it happens to me.
Here are collected documents that span about two centuries of history of the Mastroberardino family business.
The first news go back to Pietro, son of Lorenzo, of the Mastroberardino family, born in 1697 in the land of Atripalda. He is the member of a family of landowners engaged in activities related to the land. In 1747, reigning Charles of Bourbon, he buys the property located in Li Morti or Morticelli, in Atripalda, in the area where the family business is still located today.
1914 – 1932
In this section there are documents that narrate the generational transition from Cavalier Angelo Mastroberardino to his son Michele, between 1914 and 1932.
After Angelo’s passing the heirs face a difficult phase to plan the continuation of the family business and define the inheritance issues.
Meanwhile, the Great War breaks out, following the assassination of Sarajevo on June 28th 1914.
While the appointed liquidators, Prof. Villa and Prof. Rossi, start the recognition of the family assets, from the foreign markets arrive the first signs of the tensions and uncertainties of the conflict.
The widow Pasqualina continues the business with her own company together with her younger sons, Sabino, Pasquale, Alfonso. The elder sisters, Gaetana and Rachele Adele, ask for the liquidation of their shares to balance what had already received in the marriage documents.
The elder brothers Angelo and Michele Mastroberardino found a new company, launching a plan of strong development on foreign markets, thanks to the know-how acquired by Michele in previous years.
1933 – 1945
The second section of this room contains documents concerning the period between 1933 and 1945.
Michele Mastroberardino concentrates his efforts on foreign markets, in France, England, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Montenegro, Greece, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Africa, in the colonial area of Libya, Egypt, Eritrea, Somalia, then Sudan, Morocco, South Africa, up to exploring some Asian destinations and Australia.
Due to the fall of Prohibition in the United States of America, requests for collaboration from New York, Boston, New Orleans, Dallas flood in.
Italy in 1935 invades Ethiopia. Following the sanctions imposed by the League of Nations, the Duce inaugurates the autarkic phase of the regime’s economy, which imposes on the Mastroberardino enterprise the need of conquering its own ‘living space’. The traffics to African destinations and any other accessible international destination, from Latin America to Asia, intensify. The Haiti market opens with the “Taurasi extra“.
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OPENING TIME
Museo d’Impresa Mastroberardino Atripalda
Monday 16:30 – 19:30
Wednesday – Friday 10:00-13:00 / 16:30-19:30
Saturday 10:00-13:00
Closed on Sunday
WHERE WE ARE
Via Manfredi, 75-81, 83042 Atripalda AV
A16 Avellino Est Exit, Atripalda direction