Drink up the atmosphere

Collavini Vineyard's 16th-century manor house

April 27, 2000
Web posted at: 12:17 p.m. EDT (1617 GMT)

FRIULI, Italy (CNN) -- A manor house built for a count in the mid-16th century now serves as the base of operations for a wine baron at the end of this century.

	VIDEO
CNN's Elsa Klensch tours Italy's Collavini Vineyards, and interviews proprietor Manlio Collavini about the vineyard's history, its restored manor house, and its new wines. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

Manlio Collavini in the 1950s moved his wine headquarters to the home, located in northeastern Italy. A fourth-generation winemaker, Collavini says he has stayed faithful to its history.

"I loved the house as it was," he says. "So I didn't change the house, I just restored it as much as possible to look like it used to."

At the center of the home, a walled structure built in 1558, is a traditional kitchen, with a lengthy wooden table that easily seats 10 people. A 17th-century fireplace as well as copper and brassware from the Friuli (pronounced "free-oo-lee") region also highlight the room.

"It's always stayed the same," Collavini says. "Kitchens in this area are kept the same for centuries. Even if it were destroyed by invasion or a natural disaster, it would be rebuilt with the same materials.

"The only change I made was the floor," he says. "I added ceramic tiles, because of humidity in the floor."

The house also has a small chapel, built in the 1600s, where the faithful would gather for Sunday prayer. Outside that is an anteroom that held the overflow of worshipers, Collavini says.

He added a fresh coat of paint and a baptismal font, says Collavini; otherwise, the room is unchanged.

"In every church there is a font near the door," he says. "It's a little church, so to make it appear bigger I put a font there."

The living room's wooden paneling is thought to date back to the 18th century. That room is home to Collavini's collection of antique ceramic food containers, wine carafes, Biedermeier glasses and other fine glassware.

"There are glasses collected from various eras," he says. "There are .. important, rare English pieces in my collection."

CNN Style Correspondent Elsa Klensch contributed to this report.

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