History
The Faedo farm and the origins
In the mid-1960s, Angelo Zanovello bought a farm at Faedo, on the southern slopes of Monte Venda. Initially used as a green retreat for family weekends, the property included vines, olive trees and fruit trees overlooking the Faedo valley. The original viticultural nucleus comprised about 3 hectares of vines beside the forest.
Angelo’s son Franco developed an interest in viticulture while still young. After several amateur harvests, he committed himself professionally to the land and founded Ca’ Lustra in 1977. His ambition was to transform the dark cellar beneath the family home into an established wine business.
Expansion, cru research and recovered varieties
Continuous experimentation and gradual expansion strengthened the company’s presence across the Euganean Hills. The holdings were divided into distinct estates and vineyards according to their soils, exposures and microclimates, with each vineyard’s grapes handled separately.
Merlot has been cultivated at Podere Aganoor in Arquà Petrarca since the 1990s. This warm, dry, limestone-dominated sector became associated with the Sassonero and Girapoggio crus and with structured wines intended for long maturation.
In the early 2000s, an old Euganean vineyard of Moscato Nero was uprooted. A small quantity of buds was saved and transferred to Sicily through a recovery project undertaken with the University of Palermo and IRVOS. The resulting late-harvest Moscato delle Rose, Nero Musqué, first entered the Ca’ Lustra range in 2009.
Ca’ Lustra also joined a recovery programme curated by Severina Cancellier. Pinella, Pedevenda, Marzemina Bianca, Corbinella, Pattaresca and Cavarara were reintroduced as part of a dispersed collection intended to safeguard the local ampelographic heritage. Some of these varieties, once rejected as difficult or unprofitable, later proved valuable in confronting hotter and drier growing conditions.
In 2007, with the assistance of Attilio Scienza, an experimental Muscat collection was planted with approximately 70 biotypes and clones gathered across Europe. The project was intended both to study the Muscat family and to address increasingly evident climate change. Two Moscato Bianco clones were eventually selected and combined with mass selections from older vineyards to improve balance and complexity in new plantings.
Organic farming and environmental projects
Organic principles were adopted in 2008 as a development of the family’s environmental values. The approach later broadened into regenerative farming: vineyard work is frequently manual, irrigation is generally unnecessary except in exceptional circumstances, and the soils are not fertilised. Native or well-adapted varieties and cooler exposures are increasingly important responses to climate change.
Fior d’Arancio, the Euganean name for Moscato Giallo, received the Colli Euganei DOCG denomination in 2011.
In 2013, a spring above the vineyards caused recurring landslides on land that could no longer be cultivated. The family channelled the water and reshaped the natural hollow into the Venda Amphitheater, retaining the green space and creating a venue for concerts, performances and gatherings.
The company also initiated a project to study coexistence between vines and the Euganean vegri: warm, dry calcareous meadows whose biodiversity depends on conservative management that prevents their conversion to woodland. The goal is an extensive cultivation protocol in which a small production of quality grapes helps support the cost and practical needs of meadow conservation.
The second generation
Management passed to Franco’s children, Marco and Linda Zanovello. Their connection to the estate began in childhood among the vineyards and developed into professional responsibility before the formal generational transition. They now oversee vineyard cultivation and company management with a team of collaborators.
The current property covers 42 hectares: 25 hectares of vineyards, with the remainder devoted to olive groves, woodland and pasture. Twelve people work at Ca’ Lustra. The vineyards are distributed across four communes and organised into 13 named estates.
Recent development
The Euganean Hills became a UNESCO MaB Biosphere Reserve in 2024. In the same year, Ca’ Lustra’s harvest lasted 35 days, the olive harvest lasted 37 days and the cellar produced 69,129 litres of wine.
The 2025 season was the third consecutive wet growing year. Disease pressure required sustained work to preserve grape health, but the harvest delivered strong quantity and quality overall. A Pinella vineyard on Monte Venda was the exception and was lost to botrytis. Marco Zanovello described the year as economically and institutionally difficult, despite the successful wines.
Terroir
Euganean setting
Ca’ Lustra’s centre is at Faedo, in the heart of the Euganean Hills and within the protected Regional Park. The estate’s vineyards occupy multiple hills, valleys and slopes across four communes. Nearby subzones include Roverello, Venda, Cengolina, Campagnola, Monte Brecale, Faedo Basso, Valnogaredo and Monte Cinto; additional holdings lie around Arquà Petrarca.
The Euganean Hills comprise roughly one hundred hills of volcanic origin rising from the Po Valley. Ancient volcanic activity left pale siliceous rocks mixed with limestones of different ages and origins. Within the estate, soils range from weathered lava, sand, crushed stone, clay and marl to shallow calcareous profiles with red flint. This geological variability is matched by substantial differences in altitude, exposure and water availability.
Climate
The local climate is more Mediterranean than that of the surrounding Veneto: winters are mild, summers hot and dry, and day-to-night temperature differences are favourable. Hillside positions provide strong sunlight, while elevation, wind and cooler valleys create important local variations. At Arquà Petrarca, limestone replaces the volcanic rock and conditions become warmer and drier.
Pedoclimatic diversity
The holdings span approximately 80 metres above sea level at Rio to 350–400 metres on Monte Venda. Venda’s steep, mostly terraced vineyards are sunny and consistently ventilated. Their deep volcanic soils contain lava debris, clay bands and underlying marl; although poor in organic matter, they retain water and benefit from the mountain’s numerous springs.
Lower sites such as Rio and Faedo Basso are cooler and more fertile, with clay-limestone soils and nearby streams. Aganoor is warm, dry, sunny and calcareous, with shallow, freely draining soils. Cinto Alto combines trachyte and limestone with red flint in an extremely arid, windswept setting. These contrasts allow varieties to be assigned to the sites best suited to their natural behaviour and preserve recognisable differences among crus.
Winemaking
Organic and regenerative management
Organic principles have guided cultivation since 2008. Synthetic chemical agents are excluded in favour of ecological balance and spontaneous vegetation. The farm belongs to VinNatur, participates in the Euganean Hills Biodistrict and works within the Regional Park and UNESCO MaB Biosphere Reserve.
The current approach is described as regenerative. Each vine is treated as an individual shaped by its site, and many operations are performed manually. Careful vineyard management has made regular irrigation and fertilisation unnecessary; irrigation is reserved for exceptional circumstances. Soil, exposure, variety and seasonal behaviour are considered plot by plot rather than subjected to a uniform programme.
Seasonal work and climate adaptation
Work follows the vine from winter pruning through spring sap flow and budbreak, green pruning, flowering, canopy management and harvest. Healthy grapes are treated as the foundation of wine quality. Vineyard placement increasingly favours varieties capable of retaining balance in hotter, drier seasons and sites with cooler exposures. Pinella, Garganega and several recovered local cultivars are valued for late ripening, acidity or adaptation to drought.
The experimental Muscat collection, old-variety recovery programme and Author’s Proofs microvinifications support continuing selection and observation. Different management techniques are tested to reduce environmental impact while maintaining the cultural and aesthetic value of the cultivated landscape.
Biodiversity
Vineyards form part of a mixed 42-hectare landscape containing olive groves, woodland, pasture, fruit trees and dry meadows. The vegro-viticulture project studies how small-scale grape production can finance conservative management of biodiverse calcareous meadows and prevent their succession to woodland. Historic mixed plantings, irregular rows, oaks and fruit trees remain at Forestana, while woodland borders several higher vineyards.
Disease pressure and vintage conditions are addressed without forcing the vines. During the wet 2025 season, sustained protection work preserved most of the crop, although one Monte Venda Pinella vineyard was sacrificed to botrytis.
Parcel-by-parcel production
Grapes from every vineyard are vinified separately to preserve the identity of each cru. Even within a single locality, individual parcels may be divided according to potential. Many lots are kept separate, including extremely small quantities: a few quintals, kilograms or even selected bunches. Small lots may be pressed mechanically, by hand or by foot.
On arrival, grapes are normally destemmed and the berries gently crushed. White grapes are generally softly pressed, with skins separated from the must before settling and fermentation. Red grapes, and selected white grapes intended for maceration, ferment with their skins to extract polyphenols. There is no single formula: methods and vessels change according to vineyard, variety, vintage and the character of each batch.
Fermentations are traditional and spontaneous, driven by indigenous yeasts. Clarification is avoided and sulphite additions are kept to a minimum. The stated organic limits used as a reference are 100 mg/L total sulphur dioxide for reds and 150 mg/L for whites, 50 mg/L below the corresponding conventional limits.
After fermentation, wines may remain on fine lees and mature in oak, concrete or steel. Time is treated as essential to natural stability, with some wines ageing for years before bottling and further bottle refinement. The cellar contains 90 wooden barrels. A 500-litre barrel absorbs an average of 12 litres of wine per year. The bottling line can handle approximately 1,600 bottles per hour.
The Author’s Proofs programme extends this parcel-based approach into experimental runs of 100–1,000 bottles, each normally drawn from a single vessel. It tests old and newly introduced varieties, alternative vineyard management, microvinification methods and strategies for lowering environmental impact.
Philosophy
Ca’ Lustra frames wine as an expression of environmental stewardship, research, cultivated landscape and the social and economic responsibilities of an agricultural enterprise. Its declared values form the name CALUSTRA: Culture, Attitude, Foresight, Grapes, Sustainability, Land, Respect and Hospitality.
Every vineyard is understood to possess its own environment, history, development and climatic tendency. Its natural aptitude should be respected in the vineyard and not overturned in the cellar; separate vinification is therefore used to retain the identity of each lot. Quality rests on healthy grapes, close observation, patient ageing and willingness to vary methods rather than impose a standard recipe.
Tradition and experimentation operate together. Old native cultivars are recovered, international varieties are retained where they have a meaningful local history, and new selections, sites and techniques are tested in response to climate change. The desired wines are recognisable, balanced and capable of ageing without heaviness.
Environmental responsibility extends beyond organic compliance to regenerative cultivation, reduced intervention, biodiversity, mixed agriculture and preservation of the cultural and aesthetic character of the Euganean landscape. Hospitality and education are treated as part of the same responsibility: wine is a means of sharing the territory’s history, agriculture and culture.