The Ancient Wine Cellars
Since 1427, men of wine have handed down their experience, tradition and local culture of wine-making on the Tenuta Giol estate. This awe-inspiring ancient wine cellar is housed in an amazing surprising building quite unaltered by time and set against a backdrop of secular linden trees and wisteria, with a babbling brook running past.
Our barrel cellars, granary, dairies, and ageing crypts are all open for the public to taste our products and share with us the satisfaction of having preserved unaltered such a valuable historic heritage.
The Large Cellar
Protected by ancient walls over a metre thick, since the time of the Papadopoli Counts our Large Cellar has been the perfect environment for ageing quality wines.
From outside, the Cellar is a huge two-storey building with splendid traditional masonry that alternates river stones from the Piave and hand-made bricks.
On the ground floor we have a wonderful barrel cellar, one of the most impressive in Northern Italy. An amphitheatre of 78 barrels of different sizes, with the biggest holding an incredible 26,000 litres, protected by a close system of 220 beams that support a huge granary.
During World War One, the Austrians occupied this entire area and turned the Castle and Winery into a military garrison. Evidence of the troops’ presence here can still be seen in the marks left by bullets fired into some of the barrels; luckily they are so hefty that they were not damaged by the shots and their contents were safe.
The granary
The upper floor is a single extraordinarily immense open space. 78 metres long and 18 wide: this is where, for centuries, the grain was dried and stored. The roof is held up by an imposingly complex truss system in timber from the Cadore region. The steps up to the granary bear the signs of the hard work and effort demanded from the sharecroppers to fill a space of this size with grain.
The ageing crypts
The five crypts are the oldest part of the cellars as they date back to 1427, when the wine was stored inside the “Caneve” or old wine cellars.
They are perfect for ageing quality wines: 210-litre barriques, 500-litre tonneaux, and 1,300-litre barrels are protected by vaulted stone ceilings and walls over a metre thick that guarantee a constant temperature all year round.
The dairies
The old dairies, untouched since they were last used in 1959, still house all the tools and machinery used in the past.
All the milk produced by the San Polo, Ceggia and Gorgo al Monticano tenant farmers was brought to the cheese dairy on this farm estate where they collected and processed the milk to make butter and fresh and mature cheese.
Being able to see how an old dairy was organised is a truly moving privilege.
