Salvatore Ferragamo Jr. (left) and Angela Turner at the Atlanta International School. VIDEO

Friendship between an Atlanta-based restaurateur and a former Italian honorary consul brought an heir to an Italian fashion empire to the city Feb. 29, to the benefit of the Atlanta International School.

Salvatore Ferragamo Jr., the grandson and namesake of the shoemaker who founded Florence, Italy-based Salvatore Ferragamo S.p.A., came to Atlanta to promote his family’s wines through a tasting at his friend Marco Betti’s Antica Posta restaurant.

Mr. Betti had previously introduced Mr. Ferragamo Jr., who now manages Il Borro, a family estate turned into a resort and winery, to Angela Turner, a former consul and parent of a student at the international school.

Ms. Turner is organizing the school’s spring fundraising auction April 12, this year titled “Passport to Italy.”

In keeping with the spirit of the event, Mr. Ferragamo Jr. visited the international school during his recent trip and agreed to donate a three-night stay at the resort to the auction.

“When I heard that the event is about Italy, I thought Salvatore was a perfect fit,” Ms. Turner said.  “We have international families that travel a lot … and this is an interesting way to promote his property.”

The three-night stay at Il Borro is one of three Italian vacations up for auction at the event, among other items including gift certificates to Atlanta-area restaurants and a baseball autographed by Atlanta Braves outfielder Jeff Francouer.

Mr. Ferragamo Jr. said that Il Borro, which includes a thousand-year-old medieval village between Arezzo, Florence and Siena, formerly belonged to the Italian royal family.

The Ferragamo family bought the land in 1993 and Mr. Ferragamo Jr. decided to restore it to its medieval grandeur and turn it into a modern resort and winery.

“I was very attracted to the idea of starting something from zero, bringing this estate back to its beauty, expanding the winery and establishing this name ‘Il Borro’ in the world,” he said.

It took seven years to restore the medieval village, add modern amenities and update the winery.  The 300-year-old facility now produces four different wines, ensuring quality by using gravity to move ingredients instead of mechanical pumps.

“The first vintage was in 1999,” Mr. Ferragamo Jr. said.  “We’re only six vintages down the road and we’re already getting 92 points, 93 points from the wine critics, which are very good scores.”

He added that most guests at Il Borro are Americans and he travels to the U.S. several times a year to promote the resort.

The Ferragamo family is new to the hospitality industry, but has been in business since the 1920s, when Salvatore Ferragamo Sr. left Italy for California.

“He became famous making shoes for the Hollywood movie stars,” Mr. Ferragamo Jr. said. “He went completely against the industrial revolution of those days … they were all made by hand.”

He added that in a famous photo of Marilyn Monroe holding down a white skirt on a New York street, the starlet is wearing a pair of Ferragamo shoes.

Major retail clients in the U.S., including Dallas-based Nieman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue in New York, began to carry the products before Mr. Ferragamo Sr. decided to take his business back to Italy.

Mr. Ferragamo Jr. said that his grandfather took advantage of the strong artisan tradition in Florence to establish an assembly line of shoemakers, each performing a single specified task, to produce handmade shoes more quickly.

He added that when Mr. Ferragamo Sr. died in 1960, his wife Wanda Ferragamo became chair of the board, a position she still holds, and his six children went into different branches of the business.

Today, the company is a full-fledged haute couture fashion house, producing clothing and accessories from shoes to handbags and perfume.  The products are carried in department stores as well as a number of wholly owned shops, including one at Lenox Square in Atlanta.

Mr. Ferragamo Jr. said that there is a museum dedicated to his grandfather’s work in Florence containing about 10,000 of the shoemaker’s original designs and almost 70 patented inventions.

“If you go through the airport, they ask you to take off your shoes.  That’s because there is a metal shaft that holds the arch of your heel.  My grandfather invented that,” Mr. Ferragamo Jr. said.