www.italianwinemerchants.com

Working alongside his family, Marco Fantinel runs an empire. But just as Rome wasn't built in a day, neither was the current Fantinel business. It took about forty years for three generations of the Fantinel family to expand from a single restaurant, a couple of hotels and a modest vineyard in the Colli sub-zone of Friuli to its current status of owning twenty restaurants throughout central and northern Italy, producing the very fine Prosciutto di San Daniele, owning vineyards in three of Friuli's sub-zones, and making some of the best wine to come out of the region. And amid all of this making of food and wine, the family has also owned three separate Italian soccer teams, the most recent being Friuli's Triestina Calcio, which Stefano Fantinel acquired in 2006.

There is something unique about the synergy of the Fantinel businesses. In many ways, they don't so much produce the wine, make the food, and create a place to serve it than compose the ultimate Italian lifestyle. "We are very much connected to Italian lifestyle," Marco said to me over a bottle of Friulano and a plate of Prosciutto. "Italians love culture. Football, wine, food--it's a fantastic and wonderful combination of Italy."

In choosing to make the simple elements of Italian life--wine, ham, football, and osteria--the Fantinels have made traditional Italian life their enterprise, and their lifeblood. "People in Italy go to osteria," Marco said, "they go there everyday, drink wine, read the newspaper, and focus on soccer. So this means we try to make good wine, good ham, and put people around the table to talk about culture. This is where life happens in Italy."

The world imagines that this laid-back café culture is how Italians live, and this picture gives the impression that Italians are not hardworking. This impression quickly evaporates like morning mist if you spend any time with Marco (or any real time in Italy). It's ironic that he and all his family work so hard at providing Italian leisure. "To work with passion" is his family's motto. "We Friuli are hard workers. People are serious, keen to work, and it's our desire to show this passion for working hard, to respect our land and our traditions. Our future is to keep and emphasize the traditions of Friuli for global market." Fantinel has long proven its commitment to Friuli--they've been on the forefront of cultivating indigenous Friulian grapes like the tender Picolit, the unusual Rofosco, and the controversial Tocai Friuliano.