Nestled in the hills of Antria, just outside Arezzo (Tuscany), Villa La Ripa is a place where winemaking tradition meets scientific research and sustainable innovation. Saverio Luzzi, a medical doctor and former university researcher, founded the estate in 2000 to revive the Renaissance spirit of the historic villa. He not only replanted its vineyards but also instilled a renewed sense of quality and beauty that reflects the Tuscan landscape.
Today, Villa La Ripa produces around 30,000 bottles of wine per year, with the potential to reach 60,000. Its portfolio includes elegant Sangiovese, Super Tuscan blends, and white wines of distinction. But what truly sets it apart is a circular economy project that has given new value to winemaking by-products.
The idea stemmed from a simple, family-based insight. “I’m a doctor, used to laboratories and research, and my daughter is a pharmacist with experience in cosmetics. We combined our skills,” Luzzi explains. “The concept was to repurpose grape skins and seeds – typically discarded – to create a line of natural skincare products”.
Indeed, the cosmetics project is the result of a unique father-daughter collaboration: Saverio Luzzi’s scientific background provided a strong foundation for laboratory development, while his daughter’s pharmaceutical training and direct experience in producing creams brought the necessary know-how to formulate high-quality skincare products.
Far from being improvised, the process involved extensive testing, trials, and close collaboration with a specialised cosmetics laboratory. The outcome? Skincare products that retain some of the most valuable properties of the grape – and that have been enthusiastically received, from winery visitors to professionals in the health sector, including a US-based dermatologist who ordered an ample supply for her patients.
“Wine tourism played a fundamental role,” Luzzi notes. “Many of our customers, especially women, are curious to try the creams. As soon as they test them, they realise they’re something quite different – and they keep coming back from all over the world.”
Behind this success, however, lies more than just clever marketing. It is a deeply held philosophy. “Villa La Ripa was also founded with a vision for continued research,” Luzzi says. “We’ve already patented techniques for reusing vine stems, and we’re now exploring how to recover and reuse wine aromas. It’s more than a commercial strategy, it’s a way of thinking: everything we produce on the estate should be valued, reused, and never wasted.”
This mindset aligns perfectly with the goals of the European project ACE-EX – Agriculture Circular Economy Expert, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme and led by the Higher Technical Institute for New Life Technologies (ITS) in Bergamo. The project brings together 20 partners from 9 European and non-European countries, all of whom are committed to advancing circular innovation in agriculture.
Villa La Ripa shows that transforming waste into value is not only possible, it’s a path to new opportunity, where wine gives life to much more than just a bottle.
To learn more about the ACE-EX project: https://ace-ex.eu