The origins
The centuries-old history of the estate originates on 28 March 1688 when the family of the Tracagni counts, large landowners of the Valtènesi between Salò and Desenzano, purchased " fields and houses in Calvazese " and began the construction of the oldest nucleus of the villa and the cellars .
The battle of S. Martino
During the Risorgimento, the family's properties were at the center of important vicissitudes. It was precisely on other lands of the Tracagni family in San Martino and Solferino that the key battle for the unification of Italy was fought on 24 June 1859. The theater of war is also the meeting place between Maria Tracagni, a young volunteer of the nascent Red Cross, and Alessandro de Zinis, a Trentino patriot who enlisted with Garibaldi and was wounded in the field. Following their marriage, the de Zinis family moved from Val di Non to the shores of Lake Garda, settling on the Calvagese estate.
Ugo de Zinis
Ugo de Zinis (1869- 1948), son of Alessandro and Maria, significantly developed the already existing winemaking activity of the estate. Among the first Italians to graduate in Oenology at the University of Montpellier, he was a close collaborator of Arturo Marescalchi, one of the fathers of modern Italian oenology, who often went to Calvagese for his experiments. Also worth mentioning is his friendship with Pompeo Gherardo Molmenti, the Venetian senator who in Moniga in 1896 created, with the help of oenologists from Provence, the first rosé wine in Italy, the Chiaretto, obtained by making pink wine from the native Valtènesi vine, the Groppello. The letters and memories of these illustrious guests are still preserved in the family archive.
Today
Passed down in the family for 17 generations, the winemaking activity continues under the careful care of the Redaelli de Zinis family, faithful to the philosophy traced by their ancestors.