Mario Seghese, forefather of the Segheses, kindly called by his customers "Old Mario" and even "Saint Mario", was born in Piracicaba (São Paulo State), and raised in a humble family of immigrants who came from Bérgamo, in the Lombardia region, Northern Italy, and, upon coming to Brazil, made their living by working on sugarcane farms in the São Paulo hinterland.
Mario and his brother Alberto were adamant about producing high-quality cachaça, leveled with the best spirits in the world. In their teens, the two of them would stand by the roadside and wait for sugarcane trucks headed for Piracicaba´s Central Mill to drive past their spot, hoping a few stems would fall off. They would grab all fallen stems they could in order to grind them in an improvised mill, built with old abandoned pieces that they put together in the course of a few months.
Old Mario´s quest for high-quality cachaça would later lead him into establishing a distillery in Paraná State in a joint enterprise with his brother, soon to be disbanded. Old Mario then moved with his family to Santo Mario Farm in São Paulo State and started from scratch.
Whether or not by intervention of the saint after whom the farm was named, his new enterprise hit big time. Nowadays, the Segheses are already in their fourth generation and Santo Mario Distillery boasts 25 years of history.