February 20, 2026 (Taranto, Italy) — While much of the wine industry fixates on market consolidation and waning consumption, NYC-based Small Victories Imports is placing a contrarian bet on Lasorte Cuadra, a micro-producer on a preservationist mission in Puglia’s Valle d’Itria—one of Italy’s most ancient yet least familiar viticultural zones, situated on a limestone plateau between the Adriatic and Ionian seas. Despite an 88.5% loss of vineyard area over the past century, a quiet reawakening is taking shape today around the region’s rare indigenous white varieties.
Together, Lasorte Cuadra and Small Victories see market turbulence as a disruptive force making room for new voices. “Industry chaos is an incubating opportunity,” says William Schragis, co-founder of Small Victories. “The wine industry has spent the last few decades treating people like they need to apologize for what they don’t know instead of celebrating them for what they like. This grim narrative is something we did to ourselves, and the way out of it is having compelling reasons for existing, clear messaging, and loving our customers the same way we love our wines.”
Lasorte Cuadra is equally engaged with contemporary market realities—self-importing to the US through its sister company Terrestoria Wine Imports, and working with regional distribution partners that include Vine Lore Wine and Spirits in Utah, La Rosa Selections in Massachusetts (launched 2025), and now Small Victories in New York and New Jersey. This hybrid model is built around partner needs—offering the flexibility to purchase landed inventory from Terrestoria’s Utah warehouse, import directly from Lasorte Cuadra, or combine both approaches.
Flexibility matters in this case because Small Victories measures impact differently. “A lot of times reorder data is more valuable than total sales and tells a lot more about what ends in a person loving a wine,” Schragis notes. “Our job is not to convince people to carry a wine, but to usher it to the places that will appreciate it.”
Founded by husband and wife Roberto Lasorte and Stephanie Cuadra, Lasorte Cuadra is building a reputation on its flagship wine Silos, a field blend of signature local varieties—Verdeca, Bianco d’Alessano, Minutolo and Maresco—from a tiny parcel outside Martina Franca, the Baroque jewel of Valle d’Itria whose radiant palazzi, squares and churches draw visitors from around the world. Silos is a quintessentially Mediterranean wine—chamomile, thyme, gentle bitter almond—with herbal aromatics and food-friendly savoriness supported by altitude-driven acidity and silky texture from extended lees aging. Roberto, who also serves as CEO of Querciabella in Chianti Classico, brings decades of wine industry experience to this project, while Stephanie, at the helm of Terrestoria, is a champion of artisan producers from lesser-known regions of Italy and Spain.
As market forces continue to dictate trends, small producers are learning to assert themselves, patiently and defiantly. Lasorte Cuadra is no exception, selecting partnerships for alignment rather than predetermined outcomes. In Small Victories, they recognize people, not transactions—a relationship with room to evolve through shared commitment.
Schragis makes the motivation behind the work plain and simple. “So many of the people we most admire in the wine world were right here years ago, launching wines from places that weren’t yet asked for,” he reflects. “There is joy in the process of telling stories for years because they become your stories too.”
