My passion for wine has grown a lot since last year. During the winter I attended the first two levels of the Sommelier course and at the moment I am studying intensively to be prepared for the last course and the famous final exam.
Therefore, I did not miss the chance to spend a day discovering the wonderful territory of the prosecco hills of Conegliano Valdobbiadene. Time goes by and during the path we see more and more vineyards until we get to our first stop: Villa Sandi.

The prosecco hills of Valdobbiadene DOCG and the Montello DOC wines surround the entire estate and it is from this marvelous panorama that our visit begins. We walk through the eighteenth century underground tunnels that stretch for over a kilometer. One of them was found not so long ago and it appears it was used by soldiers during war time as passage under the river Piave!

We are enchanted by the innumerable bottles and the precise explanations of Lisa complete our visit at best!

From the wine cellar you can get directly inside the villa, where famous people such as Napoleone and Antonio Canova have stayed. Stucco-works, bas-reliefs with pastel colours and majestic Murano glass chandeliers complete the great imperial rooms.

Leaving Villa Sandi we head towards Conegliano and plunged into the vineyards we meet Silvia – the owner of the Riva Grande company – who guides us in a sensorial tasting to discover the scents of Prosecco. Inside some jars there are 6 “perfumes” (flowers, fruit, spices…), which we had to recognise. We begin our prosecco tasting and luckily almost everyone manages to identify all these perfumes.

Completely immersed in the vineyards this tasting of prosecco, one of the best-selling wines in the world, was a truly unique experience!

We leave this magical place surrounded by vineyards to head to San Pietro in Feletto and even here we can immerse ourselves in an atmosphere of tranquility at the Ceschin company. We decide to taste another wine, a Malvasia, knowing that our Prosecco tastings will continue in the next stage of our day throughout the Prosecco Route.

We leave the Ceschin company and its warm family and resume our journey up to Susegana; the Castle of Collatto awaits us.

The first construction of the castle dates back to the early 1000s and then numerous renovations and extensions took place until the castle passed definitively in the hands of the family the Counts of treviso (later called Conti di Collalto), who defined the settlement system and made it a proper feudal administrative headquarter.

The castle was almost entirely destroyed during the Great War and was then restored and used as a venue for numerous cultural initiatives.

After the castle our last stop can only be the Collalto company, a name that for over a thousand years has been associated with the lands of the Treviso area, but above all with the final result: the wine! The company works exclusively with proprietary grapes and by extension is the largest in the DOCG area.

After the tour of the winery we conclude our visit with a toast to our day and enjoy the last moments of tranquility before returning home.

Edward VII said: “Wine is not only drunk, it smells, it is observed, tasted, sipped and…people talk about it!” And this was the real leitmotif of our day: talking about a unique landscape in the world and appreciate its every little peculiarity.