You don't do a job like ours unless you're passionate about it. Only in this way can you overcome difficulties, like those we had last year, when we lost 60% of our grapes due to hail. You work every day and you never know what can happen: nature is generous but doesn't give certainties. Never. Simone Gianfranceschi, San Zeno Agricultural Company
Originally from the north of Lake Garda, the Gianfranceschi family has an ancient history and has been producing wine since the beginning of the nineteenth century. If at the beginning the company produced quality grapes which it gave to local producers, it was around the 1930s that Pietro Gianfranceschi decided to make a change to the company. Born in 1890 and died one day before turning 100, after fighting in the First World War he made a courageous choice and began making wine and marketing his wine in bulk.
The company is then carried on with resourcefulness by his son Zeno, who owes his name to the ancient church of the same name in Bardolino. It is in honor of the church that in the 1990s the winery took the name of "Azienda Agricola S. Zeno": hence the decision to bottle and market the production of classic Bardolino itself. Zeno is driven by the desire to follow his product to the end, see the fruit of his work and receive the right satisfaction.
Today the company is carried on by his son Simone and Zeno himself, and includes 19 hectares of land.
The grapes are processed in the cellar, still in the original place in via San Zeno in Bardolino, an ancient rustic building, renovated in the seventies. Simone Gianfranceschi has taken the reins of the company and carries it forward with dedication.
A man of few words, always precise, he is interpreting the challenge of modernity having understood how important it is to open the doors of his cellar to anyone who wants to have a tasting experience in the same place where the winemaker transformed the grapes into wine.
From the "San Zeno" winery we have selected:
- Bardolino Chiaretto Classico
- Freudo Rosso Veneto
