History
1947: The first cellar
Secondo Martini and his brother Luigi founded the business in Cossano Belbo in 1947. Its first cellar occupied the space beneath the home of Secondo and his wife Laura, beside the present headquarters. Laura shared the work of building the family enterprise, while Secondo transformed the family's connection to the Langhe into a wine business with ambitions beyond its home territory.
1971–1980: Expansion abroad
Gianni Martini, the son of Secondo and Laura, joined the company in 1971 and initiated its expansion into international markets. By 1980, foreign demand had brought exports to 70% of the business. This international growth established Fratelli Martini Secondo Luigi S.p.A. as the corporate structure behind Casa Sant’Orsola.
1994: Festa del Moscato
By the 1990s, the business worked with a large community of growers in lower Piemonte. In 1994, Secondo and Gianni Martini created the Festa del Moscato to reinforce this relationship. The annual gathering consolidated a number of smaller local celebrations into one event for the grower community.
2002: Creation of CANTI
The company created the CANTI brand in 2002 and launched it in the United Kingdom, seeking to develop an Italian wine brand for the global market. CANTI subsequently became the company's principal identity outside Italy, while Casa Sant’Orsola remained its best-known Italian brand.
2006: Magnificat
In 2006, Casa Sant’Orsola inaugurated Magnificat, a purpose-built cellar for maturing red wines. Commissioned by Gianni Martini and designed by Vittorio Moretti, it was conceived as both a working ageing space and a monumental architectural expression of the family's interest in wine.
2011: Third-generation transition
Eleonora Martini, Gianni's daughter, entered the business in 2011, consolidating the transition to the third generation. She introduced a more contemporary creative direction, redesigned the brand's image and voice, and developed a language inspired by the concept of “Affordable Luxury.”
2013–2015: Modernisation and restoration
An expansion and modernisation programme began at the Cossano Belbo production facility in 2013. In 2015, the original cellar beneath the family home reopened following a restoration intended to recover its historic character.
2020: Market leadership
In 2020, Prosecco D.O.C. Millesimato Luxury became the best-selling Prosecco in Italy. Sales data subsequently assessed for the 2022 Brands Award placed it first in the “performance for an existing product” ranking within the Alcoholic Beverages and Beer category.
2023: Entry into spirits and mixology
Casa Sant’Orsola launched Aperitime in 2023, extending its activities beyond wine with a spirits range developed for contemporary mixology.
2025: Sant’Orsola Luxury Spritz
Sant’Orsola Luxury Spritz debuted in 2025, combining Prosecco Luxury with 25 Aperitivo. The launch was supported by a national television campaign and the Luxury Spritz Tour, a programme of events in Italian hospitality venues.
Terroir
Casa Sant’Orsola is based at Cossano Belbo in the hills of Langa, within the UNESCO-listed landscape. Its vineyard relationships extend through lower Piemonte, where the business has historically worked with a large network of growers.
The viticultural description centres on gently rolling hills, historic vineyards and the continuation of local traditions. No individual vineyard elevations, exposures, climatic measurements or geological profiles are defined.
Winemaking
Casa Sant’Orsola presents the preservation of historic Langa vineyards and local traditions as a relationship between viticulture and nature. Its grower network in lower Piemonte has been a central part of the business since at least the creation of the Festa del Moscato in 1994.
No vineyard-specific cultivation regime, harvest protocol or certification covering the business as a whole is defined. A Bio Vegan Prosecco appears within the portfolio, but that individual product designation does not establish an estate-wide farming status.
Production base
The original 1947 cellar was built beneath the home of Secondo and Laura Martini, next to today's headquarters in Cossano Belbo. The wider Cossano Belbo production facility entered a programme of expansion and modernisation in 2013. The historic underground cellar reopened in 2015 after restoration of its original character.
Magnificat ageing cellar
Magnificat is dedicated to the maturation of the company's red wines, particularly Barolo. Inaugurated in 2006, it occupies two levels. The lower floor contains 2,000 barriques together with large casks arranged around the perimeter. These vessels provide the ageing environment for the cellar's principal red wines.
The portfolio includes sparkling, semi-sparkling, still-wine and spirits ranges, but no common cellar protocol is defined for grape reception, pressing, fermentation, secondary fermentation, blending, stabilisation, filtration or bottling.
Philosophy
Casa Sant’Orsola defines its philosophy as a “Luxury Experience” combining taste, quality and lifestyle in a form of luxury intended to remain broadly accessible. Its approach is explicitly market-facing: the brand seeks to read changing habits and occasions of consumption, anticipate consumer preferences and lead rather than follow change.
Attention to detail, creative ambition and a willingness to move beyond established categories underpin this positioning. Eleonora Martini's “Affordable Luxury” direction connects the family's heritage with contemporary visual language and younger consumers.
Family continuity is presented as another central value. Since 1947, the Martini family has linked work, passion, wine and attachment to its home territory across three generations. Gianni and Eleonora Martini frame tradition and innovation as complementary tools for creating recognisable wines and sparkling wines in an increasingly standardised global market.
Environmental messaging includes the preservation of historic vineyards and local traditions in harmony with nature. Packaging material for Prosecco D.O.C. Millesimato Luxury is described as using 70% recovered raw materials and reducing carbon-dioxide emissions.