Angelo Maci: A Life Devoted to Wine and a Great Family Called Cantine Due Palme
Written by Davide Gangi | Published in people, wine 
For me, telling Angelo Maci’s story isn’t simply a matter of recounting the history of a wine entrepreneur, because it would be impossible to separate what he has built from the man I was fortunate enough to meet many years ago—a man with whom I share a deep friendship, one that has grown out of mutual esteem, respect, consideration, and the kind of trust that only time can foster in authentic relationships. When you’ve known someone for so long, it becomes difficult to focus solely on roles, achievements, or a company’s numbers, because behind every milestone, you inevitably end up looking for the man himself—his motivations, the people who have stood by him, and above all, what his work has meant to others. And that’s where I want to begin in telling the story of Angelo and the extraordinary history of Cantine Due Palme.
We must return to the land, to Cellino San Marco, to our family roots, to the figure of Grandfather Ettamiano, and to that rural culture in which the vineyard was not merely a topic of conversation but an integral part of daily life. Angelo comes from that world and has never truly left it, not even as Cantine Due Palme grew, as international markets, awards, and travels came along, and as that venture—founded in 1989 by a small group of winemakers—became one of the most important and representative cooperatives in central and southern Italy.
To understand the significance of what he accomplished, we must recall what Apulian viticulture was like at the time. This region already boasted extraordinary vineyards and grape varieties that we now know and appreciate far beyond our borders, but all too often, the wealth generated by those grapes found its way elsewhere. The Salento region produced, worked, and toiled, while a significant portion of the value ended up elsewhere. There was an enormous productive force that had not yet fully translated into identity, recognition, and—above all—fair compensation for those who worked that land every day.
Angelo realized that this situation could change, and above all, he sensed that no one could truly change it on their own. His project also stems from this conviction: to bring together many small-scale winegrowers—who are individually vulnerable to market forces—and transform them into a community capable of sharing a common direction and a shared future. Not an indistinct mass of grape suppliers, but men and women aware that they are part of something that could give greater strength to their work.
It is here that the word “family” takes on a much greater meaning in the story of Angelo Maci.
Of course, there is his closest family, the one that has been by his side every step of the way. There is Assunta De Cillis, the woman who has shared a journey with him in which his private life and his business have inevitably become intertwined. Because behind such a long entrepreneurial history, there’s more than just the decisions made in the cellar, the investments, the harvests, or the markets conquered: there are the worries brought home in the evening, the difficult choices, the responsibilities, and those moments when one must find the strength to carry on. On this long journey, Assunta represents that familiar presence that perhaps doesn’t need to be in the spotlight to be essential.
Then there are Melissa and Antonella, who grew up inevitably immersed in the world of wine, listening to stories about vineyards, harvests, partners, markets, challenges, and projects; and today there are the grandsons, Angelo Maci Junior and Francesco Fortunato, who represent another generation of this story and face a wonderful responsibility: to take on what their grandfather built, not merely preserving it, but finding their own voice and their own way to carry it forward into the future.
But it would be an oversimplification to stop there, because Angelo’s family is much larger.
His family also includes “his” farmers. And I like to call them just that—farmers—because it’s an ancient and beautiful word, a word that smells of earth and hard work, that speaks of hands marked by labor, dawns spent among the rows of vines, winter pruning, summers under the sun, the fear of a hailstorm, and the anticipation of a harvest in which the results of an entire year are gathered in just a few days. These are men and women who often own just a few hectares—sometimes small plots inherited from their parents—but who safeguard a heritage without which no great winery could exist.
Angelo understood this before many other things. He realized that even before producing great wines, it was necessary to recognize the value of those who make wine possible, and I believe that one of the most important achievements of his entrepreneurial life was precisely that of having helped restore dignity to the work of his farmers. A dignity that is certainly economic, but above all human and social, because making a small winegrower feel part of a larger project means allowing him to look at a bottle making its way to a distant market and recognize in it a part of his own story.
For me, this is cooperation in its most authentic form: not just bringing together quantities of grapes, but bringing together destinies.
That’s how Cantine Due Palme has grown. The number of members, hectares, facilities, bottles, markets, and responsibilities has grown; other local cooperatives have joined the project, and what began as a simple idea has become one of the most significant examples of wine-growing cooperation in southern Italy. But behind this growth, the people have remained at the heart of it all, because every harvest meant receiving, along with the grapes, something infinitely more precious: the trust of so many families.
And this is perhaps the most valuable asset Angelo has accumulated in his life. Machinery, facilities, and sales networks can be purchased; people’s trust, however, must be earned, year after year, especially when times get tough.
Angelo managed to be both a man of the land and an entrepreneur, realizing that the future of the cooperative could not depend solely on quantity. It was necessary to bottle the wine, build recognizable brands, improve quality, invest in technology, tackle the markets, and above all, have the courage to assert that Salento would no longer be merely a region capable of producing great grapes destined for others, but would put its own name on the bottles, directly expressing its own identity.
Today it may seem almost natural. Back then, it wasn’t at all. It took vision, courage, and even that healthy dose of stubbornness that is part of Angelo’s character. Anyone who knows him knows how firmly he stands by his convictions and how he pushes forward when he deeply believes in something. Some of his insights speak precisely to this ability to look beyond the present—from his work with Negroamaro, Primitivo, and Salice Salentino to the foresight with which he believed in the potential of Susumaniello when this grape variety certainly didn’t enjoy the attention it receives today. Believing in something before it becomes a trend is one of the differences between following the market and having a vision.
Cantine Due Palme has thus become a major player capable of competing in both Italian and international markets, while also helping to overcome the long-standing prejudice that had long associated cooperatives solely with large-scale production. Angelo has demonstrated that a cooperative can strive for quality, build an identity, promote the grape varieties of its region, and, above all, create a business model capable of balancing economic growth with social responsibility.
But after so many years of friendship, it is precisely here that my story inevitably returns to the man.
Throughout my journey in the world of wine, I’ve met so many people. Some relationships have remained strictly professional, while others have stood the test of time and evolved into something deeper. That’s what happened with Angelo. We’ve exchanged views many times, shared ideas and important moments, and we certainly haven’t always seen eye to eye—because true friendship doesn’t require agreement. It requires respect. And it is respect, along with affection, that best captures how I feel about him.
I know her character, her sensitivity, her deep devotion to her family, and the pride with which she regards her homeland—and above all, I know just how much work it took to get to where she is today. Cantine Due Palme was not inevitably destined to become what it is today. Someone had to envision it when it didn’t yet exist, build it, defend it, help it grow, and convince others to entrust him with a part of their future. Angelo did just that.
And that’s why today I like to imagine him looking around and measuring his life not by the number of bottles produced or the markets he’s conquered, but by the people.
This is the image of Angelo that feels most true to me: a man at the heart of a huge family—a family that begins at home but extends into the vineyards, the countryside, and the homes of those who, for so many years, have entrusted their grapes to Cantine Due Palme.
And that is when a winery ceases to be merely a business and becomes a community—a community whose value cannot be measured solely in terms of bottles, hectares, or revenue, because it also encompasses the ability to keep rural jobs alive, offer families a future, and recognize the central role of those who, all too often in the history of wine, have remained out of the spotlight: the farmer, the one from whom it all begins.
Today, Angelo Maci Junior and Francesco Fortunato are inheriting something far more complex than just a large, well-known company. They are inheriting a legacy of trust built by their grandfather over nearly forty years, and this is likely the most precious asset they will have to safeguard. They won’t have to be carbon copies of their grandfather, because every generation has the right and the duty to live its own time, but they will need to fully understand why their grandfather made certain choices and what sacrifices were necessary to turn an intuition into a reality capable of engaging so many people.
Markets will change, consumers will change, technologies will change, and the way we communicate about wine will change, but wine will continue to come from the earth and will always need someone willing to work the land. And it is precisely in our respect for that person that the truest value of cooperation will continue to be measured.
If I had to choose a photograph to capture the essence of Angelo Maci, I wouldn’t choose a bottle, a medal, or a picture of a grand winery. I’d choose a family photograph—but one so large that it couldn’t fit in a frame.
Because his most important legacy lies not only in the bottles that have carried the Cantine Due Palme name around the world, but also in the people who believed in him, in the dignity accorded to the work of those who cultivate the land, in the pride of a region that has learned to give its wines a name and value, and in the opportunity to pass all of this on to a new generation.
And it is perhaps precisely here that I rediscover the Angelo Maci I know and love: not just one of the key figures in the growth of Apulian wine, but a man who has been able to transform a personal insight into a shared destiny.
Vintages come and go, bottles run out, and even great successes, sooner or later, become part of history. People, however, remember those who knew how to value their work. And this is perhaps the greatest satisfaction Angelo Maci can experience today: looking at his family, his farmers, and his land, and recognizing in each of them a piece of the extraordinary story that continues to grow alongside him.
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