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| Defying the unanimous advice of government officials, land owners, and bankers to plant tobacco at Barboursville, Gianni Zonin -- 6th generation heir to a family wine enterprise active since 1821 in the Veneto -- acquired this plantation in 1976 with the seemingly ridiculous expectation of creating a vineyard. Jefferson had attempted this, persistently into the 19th Century at Monticello, always failing to achieve a single harvest. In 2006, on the occasion of celebrating the winery’s 30th anniversary as “setting the standard” for a region now populated by more than 100 vineyards, Gianni and Silvana Zonin opened a new wine museum at Barboursville, looking back upon centuries of Italian viticulture, and a barrel aging room for Octagon, where the history of their creation of the estate that gave birth to a new wine region is laid out upon the walls in illustrated chapters, culminating in the validation of Octagon, itself, as the crowning achievement of Virginia viticulture. These rooms are open to the public every day, on the same schedule as the Tasting Room. In planning travel in Italy, please consider one of the estates of Casa Vinicola Zonin, in 7 provinces from the Veneto to Sicily.
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