Italian news Archivi - Del Rebene

An all-German Carmenère on the hills of Zovencedo

Colli Berici, the eighties.

Wandering here and there, two university students discover an old village of the seventeenth century, abandoned since the fifties.

The electricity in that remote corner of Zovencedo never came.
Thus, after the Second World War, the families who live there emigrated to France.

Isolated place, 360 degree view of the surrounding hills and the Gazzo valley. Name: «The caverns».
And if the name means something, it must have been really bad.

But it is suggestive enough to ignite the imagination of one of the two students, Francesco Castegnaro: a career as a lawyer before him, a great passion for nature within himself.

Castegnaro thinks that having a property in such a place can only make sense if agricultural activity is restored.

A few years later, he arranges the twenty-three hectares of land, and on an area of three hectares, enhancing the existing terraces, olive cultivation resumes.

We are in 1992.
A few years later he clears another 5 hectares, and plants a vineyard there. Thus was born the Del Rèbene farm, which takes its name from the local road that acts as a border to the north of the plot (…)

Loretta Simoni

From the Blog “Life On The Hill”

The best known of the documents attesting to the presence of the olive tree and the production of olive oil on the Berici Hills, dates back to 1268.

In a long and detailed exposition of the rights of the then Bishop, in the territory of Barbarano Vicentino and neighboring areas, the custody of vines and olive trees and the production of oil were treated.
However, it seems that the olive tree arrived in Veneto before the year 1000, for liturgical purposes related to the Christian religion.
The Venetian domination gave impetus to the expansion of cultivation, which experienced abandonments, due to the onset of famines, and subsequent resumptions, such as that of the second post-war period and the most recent, linked to the project of a quality oil.

The PDO extra virgin olive oil from the Berici Hills

The oil of the Berici Hills is a precious and high quality oil. Most of the producers are gathered in Olibea, an association of Berici olive growers, which together with local institutions and trade associations started an experimental project on olive and oil quality in 2000.
The results have been excellent, and have brought many awards and high level awards to the product.

The olives from which it is extracted with a continuous cycle process, are mainly of four types (frantoio, leccino, pendolino, rasara) and give a marked green-gold color oil, with a strong taste, a fruity aroma of various intensities, with hints of cooked vegetables and aromas of bitter almond.
About twenty municipalities in the territory of the Berici Hills are affected by this production.

[Life On The Hill]