Santa Margherita wine group donates €1m to hospital

Italian wine group Santa Margherita, together with its parent company Zignago Holding, has donated €1 million to a hospital in Veneto to aid the Covid-19 relief effort.

The wine group and other subsidiaries of Zignago Holding, including Zignago Vetro and Zignago Power, have donated €1 million to Portogruaro Hospital which will go towards the construction of a new post-op recovery room.

The room will have seven hospital beds where patients will be cared for between six to 12 hours. This, according to a statement, will enable the hospital to isolate its intensive care unit (ICU) so that it can be used to treat medical emergencies only.

Given the current situation, however, the recovery room will be brought into use to fight the coronavirus.

President of Zignago Holding, Stefano Marzotto, said: “Our group owes everything to our local area, ever since my grandfather founded the company back in 1935. We have always strived to combine our business objectives with social and ethical responsibility.

“This recovery room project is important to our local community because it represents an immediate and concrete promise of help to handling this crisis now. In the future, when this crisis finishes, it will give Portogruaro Hospital the ability to handle other emergency situations more effectively, allowing them to treat post-operative patients separately from other ICU patients.”

Santa Margherita has also set up “insurance policies” for its employees covering the effects of Covid-19. In addition, it is donating a portion of its sales revenue to local charities.

President of Santa Margherita wine group, Gaetano Marzotto, said: “Santa Margherita Gruppo Vinicolo wants to lend its support to the various different organizations who are helping and treating the local communities which are an active part of our group of wineries around the country.”