The story of Wittwer distillery | W1920
Our history goes back a long way, precisely in 1920...
Our history goes back a long way, precisely in 1920. In that year, my grandfather Mario Caccialanza, named Spiro, began to travel forth and back on the roads between Bodio, Giornico, Biasca and Tenero, in order to distill grappa for the farmers with his mobile steam distillation flask.
He was a natural talent, and since he was aware that he could not live on the income from distillation alone, as it was an activity limited to a restricted annual period, he decided to open a bicycle shop.
He thus worked on distilling grappa from September to February and on fixing bicycles from March to August.
He would have been so proud to know that I am carrying on his “creations”, but sadly I did not have time to get it over: he became ill and died shortly before I decided to take up this path.
At the age of 20, I was standing at a crossroads: should I pursue a military career or carry on my grandfather’s business?
After lengthy reflection, I decided to take the risk: it was in June 1999. My wife has really supported me in taking this decision.
The business flourished and in 2008 I decided to engage an assistant in the bicycle shop. Therefore I could invest more time in improving both businesses, never forgetting my traditions and my history.
In 2010, we established new headquarters in Biasca, Via Prada 2.
Here we are preserving everything we had inherited: the secrets, the ancient recipes, the passion and, above all, grandfather’s original distillation flask – all that in the midst of all the state of art technology.
Our philosophy is to carry out our work with love and find fulfilment in it.
In our distillery, everything is produced by hand and all our products are made locally. The grapes exclusively come from Ticino, as the other fruits have Swiss origins.
We do not use any chemical additives, and in order to supply a genuinely 100% local product we use the water from our mountains: Santa Petronilla water.
Thanks to my wife and my daughter I feel full of energy, determined and in harmony.
I would not have been able to manage all this on my own and would not be capable to work from morning till night without this peace.
In the later years, we have decided to change our products design: we have developed a website, where people can also buy our products online, and we have succeeded in creating our logo.
In order to preserve the bond with our history, as I told you, we have chosen the mark “W1920”.
