Il vino per antica tradizione
Even in our choice of name our company acknowledges its origins in the ancient Benedictine Abbey of St. Andrew in Busco which once stood in this area and of which today only a small part remains. In fact, our passion for wine and our experience in producing it derive from the Benedictine attitude to the working of the land and wine-making.
The Family
A tradition through the centuries
The Zeno family was one of the most noted Venetian aristocratic families. Girolamo Zeno held the important position of Procurator of Saint Mark but it was his son Marco Zeno who settled in the Trevigiano area, commissioning the famous architect Andrea Palladio the construction of his new residency just after 1554. Today, the direct descendents of the Zeno family continue to produce prestigious wines using ancient wine-making methods. Only grapes produced on the family’s estate are used and in some cases precious oak barrels are used for ageing.
The modern ages
In the 1960s/70s the spirit of the property was radically changed into an entrepreneurial stamp and the stunning family estate was transformed into a gem of modern agriculture. The estate developed from the rearing of cattle to the cultivation of maize and beetroot and above all to the consolidation of the ancient traditions of wine-production. Its vines remained at all times the core production of the estate and whereas for years their wine had been exclusively for the tables of Venetian nobility it soon became highly coveted also by local and international clientele.
The family today
Today the company is directed by Giangiacomo Gallarati Scotti Bonaldi, who manages it following the family tradition, after a long and attentive period working alongside the previous generation. Giangiacomo, along with the rest of the family, is motivated by an immense passion for nature and desire to ensure the continuation of the long history of the Zenos, a family which has always managed this activity through innovative and, at times, courageous choices while respecting at all times tradition and the territory.
Our Label
Abbazia di Busco’s present label takes the historical dimensions of the family and unites it with a local and territorial vocation with a clear reference to the ancient Abbey of Saint Andrew, first mentioned back in the 12th century. The symbols used can be found in ancient documentation of the Busco area dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries, the period in which Marco Zeno chose to take up residence in the area commissioning Palladio for the creation of his splendid Villa Zeno and even the wording used, brings to life the style of that era.
The label has not always been the one we see today even if the previous version, used from the 1960s, also illustrated the connection between ancient traditions and the history of the Zeno family. In fact, it represented a coat of arms topped by the Doge of Venice’s ducal hat. Here Girolamo Zeno, Marco’s father, held a very important position: Procurator of San Marco. This coat of arms marked all bottles produced from the 1960s until recently when the new label was created in order to underline the importance of the territory for our wines
