Clemente Michel, Carlo Re, Carlo Agnelli and Eligio Baudino started the company in 1847, as a vermouth bottling plant in Pessione. A few years later Alessandro Martini joined the team, becoming the director in 1863 along with Teofilo Sola and Luigi Rossi (who was the inventor of a vermouth). In 1863 they changed the company name to Martini, Sola & Cia. They started exporting bottles of vermouth around the world. New York city was given its first crates in 1867. At the time the firm was awarded several prizes, which are still recorded on the bottles: Dublin (1865), Paris (1867 and 1878), Vienna (1873) and Philadelphia (1876). Just thirty years after its creation, Martini was available in the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Greece, Portugal, Belgium, Egypt and other countries. In 1879 the Sola family sold its interests to the remaining partners, who renamed the company Martini & Rossi, as it stands today.