Urlari’s Italian founder, Roberto Cristoforetti, is a farmer, a craftsman and an innovator. He combines his skills and experiences in pursuit of his dream to create fine wine with the founding of his Tuscan winery Azienda Agricola Urlari.
Roberto was born in the village of Tuenno in Trentino-Alto Aldige, a mountainous region in northern Italy. Descended from a long line of farmers, his family owned apple orchards and when he was young, Roberto worked along side his father in the fields. He developed the sensibilities of a farmer through his early experiences and to this day, he is a registered fruit farmer in Italy and continues to oversee his family’s apple orchards.
Roberto developed a second career when he was hired by The Lange Company in 1975 to work in the Ski Boot Research Laboratory in their European manufacturing headquarters located in the neighboring village of Mollaro. Roberto learned the craftsmanship required to make competition ski boots for World Cup Ski racers and he has crafted boots for some of the greatest ski racers of our time. Since the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, 69 Olympic medals have been won by competitors wearing his boots, including gold medalists Phil Mahre, Alberto Tomba, Herman Maier, Tommy Moe, Picabo Street, Julia Mancuso, Didier DeFago and 2011 overall world champion Maria Reisch.
Competition ski boots are handcrafted; custom-molded to fit the racers’ feet and modified to suit their individual style of racing. During his 37-year career, Roberto has collaborated with Lange’s engineers to innovate materials, adapat hardware, and create molds to improve the performance of the ski boots. He is co-named as the designer with Rossignol/Lange on a registered patent to create the first carbon ski boot. Roberto created metallic-gold colored ski boots worn by the great Italian skier Alberto Tomba to celebrate his 2 gold medals won at the 1988 Calgary Olympics and over the years he has collaborated with Italian design firm Pininfarina, famous for Ferrari design, to design visually arresting ski boots.
Roberto created boots for Alberto Tomba throughout his racing career and the two became good friends and frequently traveled together. Tomba’s well-known appreciation for fine wines was rewarded with invitations to visit the world’s top wineries and Roberto accompanied him on these visits. Between 1990 and 1998, they visited the vineyards of Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Chateau Margeaux, Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Chateau Lynch Bages in Bordeax, Domaine de la Romanee-Conti in Burgundy, Ornellaia in Tuscany and Santa Rita in Chile. In California, they were welcomed at Opus One, Beringer, Shafer, Mondavi and Atlas Peak. Roberto credits his introduction to diverse styles of winemaking around the globe as well as his passion for fine wines to his friendship with Alberto Tomba.
Roberto began to dream of experimenting with the different elements of winemaking that he had observed to create fine wines. In 1998, he became a partner in a start up Tuscan winery, Duca, but left the partnership in 2003 to create his own winery. Convinced that Tuscany’s soil and terrain offers the best wine-growing region in the world for a modern wine, he searched the area known as the Etruscan Coast of Tuscany until he located a field named Urlari that offered an elevated position, continuous sun exposure and rich virgin soil. He purchased the field in 2004 and named his company after it: Azienda Agricola Urlari.
There may be no obvious parallels between crafting competition ski boots and crafting premium wines but Roberto sees the similarities in the precision and attention to miniscule details that are required to consistently achieve the highest level of craftsmanship. Roberto brings that same passion for innovation and attention to detail that are paramount to crafting world-class ski boots to the wines that he makes.
