History of a Veneto family
The chapter about the history of the distillery mainly concerns the generation of Toni Poli (1919-2001), with the countless ups and downs that had to be faced during the difficult and intense 20th century.
Above all, the Second World War, that Toni experienced first hand as a young lieutenant in the Bersaglieri, in the “Garibaldi” 8th Regiment posted in Pola.
<< “Bersagliere” for a lifetime
Toni experienced the Second World War at the front, as a young lieutenant in the Bersaglieri, in the “Garibaldi” 8th Regiment posted in Pola. Left, with a group of comrades on a Guzzi motorcycle, a lifetime passion.
Moreover, since his brother GioBatta was also at the front, the distillery had to be managed by the now old Giovanni Poli, together with those workers too old for active military service and the women.
And it was thanks to the women of the Poli family that the distillery kept going and managed to continue without interruption even in those terrible years.
<< Women wearing... pants
The sisters Maria and Lisetta Poli. The women carried on an increasingly important role in the Distillery, committed as they were to running the company during the two World Wars while the men were at the front.
In fact, the production of Grappa and liquors proceeded full swing, also thanks to important orders for from German army.
The German army supplied the distillery with the sugar needed to produce the liquors and asked the girls working there to hide it so that the partisans could not find it, unaware that some of them were even engaged to partisans!
And it happened that by day the Poli family had to pay taxes to the Fascist government
<< Greeting from "l'omo de to mare" (your mother’s husband)
Two postcards sent by Giovanni Poli, on a business trip, to his son Toni.
of the Republic of Salò, while at night that they had to deliver the sugar to the partisans.
At the end of the war the Poli distillery was in good condition, even if there was the problem of having to settle the position of the 40 employees according to the new regulations.
Hence the decision of the Poli brothers to join in 1945 the newly formed Industrial Association of Vicenza.
<< Always better
Toni and Teresa together with Ernesto Zonta, Graziano Nicoli, Angelo Mascarello and Sebastiano Scodro. Toni Poli improved the distillation plant in 1956 with the addition of a boiler and using the passage of steam from one boiler to another.
In 1951 it was decided to change the company name back to that of the old “Distilleria Poli GioBatta”.
After the death of old Giovanni in 1964, in 1976 there was another change: the company was transferred to the husband and wife Antonio Poli and Teresa Parma: Teresa took over the half previously owned by GioBatta, the brother of Toni.
<< The fire of 1970
Toni Poli, mortified, walks around the “selese” (barn) of the Distillery, which caught fire due to spontaneous combustion of the pine-cones used to feed the steam generator burner. Toni managed to save two workers who were suffocating.
The distillery flourished, but the time was ripe for a radical change in the company policy; a change that was to bring the distillery in line with the new needs of consumers.
<< The first fork-lift truck
Toni Poli introduced important technical improvements: here he is driving the first fork-lift in front of the grape-seed separator.