The Name Turning Wine into a Masterpiece: Giacomo Marzotto
In Franciacorta, Giacomo Marzotto sees wine as a masterpiece born of nature and labor, carrying his family’s legacy forward with perfection, sustainability, and innovation while representing Italian winemaking worldwide.
If Italy’s Franciacorta region is celebrated today as one of the world’s most prestigious sparkling wine centers, it is thanks not only to the past but also to the promise of the future. Giacomo Marzotto is one of the figures embodying that future. From his beginnings among the vineyards of Erbusco, he continues his journey by bringing innovation, vision, and sustainability to his family’s deep-rooted heritage.
As the new generation behind a globally iconic wine tradition, Marzotto remains faithful to the culture of excellence while championing a more modern, more responsible winemaking that honors nature.
In this exclusive interview, Marzotto reflects on everything from his earliest memories in Erbusco to his view of wine as a “masterpiece,” the responsibility of carrying Italian excellence to the world, and the legacy he hopes to leave for the future. Get ready for a wine journey that unfolds in layers, just like a fine vintage.
When you were in Erbusco for the first time, surrounded by vineyards and forests, what is the first scent, sound, or image you remember? How do those memories live at the heart of your wine journey today?
For the first time, I realized that wine could truly be a masterpiece. Since then, I’ve looked at wine differently: not just as the expression of nature in a single year, but as the expression of the vision of a team of dozens of people, as well as years of work, passion, and long, gradual maturation.
Franciacorta and its surroundings is now one of Italy’s most prestigious wine regions. How has the wine culture of this land shaped your personality and your understanding of wine?
I’ve undoubtedly absorbed here the desire to dedicate myself to the culture of excellence, and I have adopted it in my everyday life. Furthermore, Franciacorta is a young denomination – it’s only 60 years old – and the consortium was founded as recently as the 1990s, but with clear ideas and very stringent rules: around a hundred very reputable and privately owned companies with only 3,000 hectares of land (a relatively small wine region). This fact has provided the impetus to demonstrate to the world that dreams can still be realized and become market benchmarks.
Your company embraced Prosecco Superiore and Pinot Grigio long before they became “trends.” How did this visionary approach give you courage in your personal life? Was there ever a turning point where this mindset guided one of your own decisions?
A pioneering spirit has definitely always been a family trait, even before it became a corporate one. This, combined with the foresight of a family business and an international vision, has allowed us to create some of the iconic Made-in-Italy wines for which the world envies us. Creating our Pinot Grigio, which all the world knows – and has loved for over 60 years; focusing on a local sparkling wine in the steep hills of Valdobbiadene, and contributing to transform it into a global success called Prosecco Superiore…
This would never have happened if our DNA didn’t embrace the pursuit of excellence, giving our consumers the best, and the courage to step out of our comfort zones, even at a personal level. Our wines are available in over 90 countries, from Canada to Australia: I don’t travel as much as they do in a year, but I try my best!
With more than 70% of your production exported to over 90 countries, you carry a truly global responsibility. When you go to bed at night, what is the first concern or thought that crosses your mind?
I think it’s a common thread with the rest of the team: being ambassadors of Italian excellence around the world is an honor but also a responsibility. Therefore, our obsession is to always do better.
There are projects like RafCycle for label recycling and energy efficiency initiatives. Do you see these as mere business requirements, or as a kind of family duty—a debt owed to nature and to the future?
“We believe that to innovate means to respect: that the true avant-garde means protecting our planet with intelligence and foresight, combining tradition and technology to create a sustainable balance over time. We are ready to implement solutions that are not only sustainable, but also visionary: a future where the balance between tradition and innovation is not a challenge, but a natural synergy. Agricultural traditions are not just a heritage to be defended, but also a base from which to reinvent a more modern, more efficient form of farming, closer to people and to the needs of the planet. Just as my great- grandfather envisioned 90 years ago.”
You’ve worked with innovative products in the wine world. If the younger version of yourself could listen to you today, would you tell him to “dream without fear”? Or would you offer a different piece of advice?
To my younger self I would say: “keep innovating and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone!”
There are countless wines circulating in world markets, countless harvests each year. Which wine has truly touched your palate and made you think, “I remember exactly how I felt when I first tasted this”? Which place, person, or memory is hidden in that flavor?
I remember vividly the first time I tasted a new cuvée that made its debut in 2007. It was the most challenging the winery had ever made: a complex and marvelous balance of nuances from dozens of vineyard plots, all working together to create an indelible harmony. I find that perfectly recognizable style every time I savor this Franciacorta, always contemporary and always true to itself.
Of course, there are always numerical goals—export rates, revenue growth, market expansion. But what excites you most about the future? In 10 or 20 years, what would you like to be able to say, “This is what I worked for, this is the legacy I wanted to leave”?
First and foremost, knowing that I have made millions of wine lovers happy in a sustainable way; and then the investments in the various regions where we work, in people, and in sustainability, which I will in turn leave as a legacy to the future generations within the company.
If you could only drink one type of wine for the rest of your life, which would it be? And in your imagination, in what setting would you be enjoying it — what music would be playing, who would be at the table with you, and what would you be eating?
“I drink Franciacorta when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I am alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I am not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise, I never touch it—unless I’m thirsty” Did you recognize the quote?
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