Bento Gonçalves

Bento Gonçalves is a municipality in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, created in 1875 as one of the centres of Italian immigration and now often called the wine capital of Brazil because of its vineyards and wine production. The area was first known as Cruzinha, then as the Dona Isabel colony, which received its first 25 Italian families in 1875, mostly from the Trento region; in 1890 it became a city and took the name of Bento Gonçalves da Silva, leader of the Farroupilha rebels. Later settlers came from Veneto, Trentino and Lombardy, and also from Poland, Germany, Sweden, France and Spain. A railway reached the town in 1919, linking it with Porto Alegre. The 2022 census recorded 123,151 inhabitants. President Ernesto Geisel, who governed Brazil from 1974 to 1979, was born here in 1907.