THE LIBRARY
It is to be assumed that the term vinária already indicates to the reader that the library we are going to talk about here has to do with wine, since the Biblioteca Vinária Reppucci is precisely a collection composed of items that are somehow related to wine. The objective is to clarify that the items are not necessarily fully dedicated to wine, but that wine or what concerns to wine is present in them. On the other hand, it is said "items", because the library is composed not only of books but also of magazines, documents and manuscripts.
About 75 to 80% of the collection is made up of works whose theme is directly linked to wine, vines, grapes, under all themes and forms of approach, that is, technical works, dissemination, advertising, history, literary. Works on grapes, their species, cultivation, harvest, diseases, production and types of wines, containers, storage (cellars) etc. Written in different languages: Portuguese, French, English, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek; German is very little represented in the collection, despite one of its main items being an incunabula printed in the language of Goethe. There are many works in Latin, but almost all the presence of wine is accidental. In this case, too, there is a curious exception: one of the incunabula is the oldest known printed text devoted entirely to wine.
However, the purpose of this book is to show a little of the remaining 20 to 25% of the library that are (in addition to its obvious quality and unique relevance as a wine collection) what distinguishes, enhances and values ​​it as a formidable source of cultural information; and last but not least, it portrays the character, motivation and sensitivity of the collector.
Our expectation is that this work will be able to demonstrate how a leisure, chosen initially to occupy time previously dedicated to professional activities, can result almost in passion and lead to the realization of a formidable, meritorious and permanent enterprise. When engineer Juan Carlos Reppucci decided, in the early 1990s, to acquire and collect works that had to do with "the drink of the gods" that he loved so much, he was far from imagining that this choice would lead him on an exciting adventure and that it would open the doors for him to panoramas entirely different from those that were the scene of his life as a businessman.