MY OTHER PASSION Ferraris with Sandra Lodi of Tenuta Gacci

It was a golden but un-signposted road that led Sandra Lodi, owner of Tenuta Gacci in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, to the stable of the Prancing Horse, and to becoming a renowned figure in the world of Ferraris – one that earned her, along the way, the honour of Cavaliere dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana for her work representing Italian excellence abroad.

- STORY TERESA LEVONIAN COLE

‘I was born in a castle near Ferrara, where my father was the estate manager and owned a vineyard,’ she says. ‘I was never expected to work for a living.’ But the free-spirited Sandra left home at 18 to see the world. Along the way, she made a friend who owned a Morgan – an early British-made sports car. ‘That was the beginning of my love for cars,’ she says.

On the fast-track

Back in Italy, she went to work in communications, for a company involved with Formula 1 motor racing, where she met the likes of race car drivers Nelson Piquet, Ayrton Senna, Eddie Irvine, Nigel Mansell, Gilles Villeneuve – and the man who would become both her life and business partner: scion of a landed Umbrian family and European racing champion, the late Fabrizio Violati.