If the Abruzzo of wine has fully entered the Olympus of quality oenology at a world level it is also due to a company that started from the suggestive hills of Bolognano, in the hinterland of Pescara, those told by one of the greatest Italian directors, Ermanno Olmi.
But if the Abruzzese hills of Olmi told of a thousand years of silence, Marcello Zaccagnini, founder in 1978 of the company, he was able to make the vineyards speak with a language now known all over the world, that of Abruzzo wine.
And it is precisely here that the Abruzzo company, known as the winery of “Vino del Tralcetto”, an excellent Montepulciano d’Abruzzo launched in 1978, has become an absolute protagonist in the panorama of high quality viticulture.
But from that “distant” Tralcetto, the road traveled by Zaccagnini has been a lot and he has crossed every corner of the planet, always speaking one language, that of Abruzzo.
Behind the success of every company there are men and women who have had the courage to step out of their comfort zone to face challenges that initially seemed impossible. This is the story of Marcello Zaccagnini who today represents one of the most enlightened and capable Italian wine entrepreneurs.

“I soon learned from my family to produce grapes – explains Marcello Zaccagnini today – but at twenty I realized I wanted to try the most ambitious path by giving life to my own label. Today we are 150 people in the company, the vast majority of whom live in Bolognano, the town where I grew up: colleagues, collaborators but first of all friends who believed in his own dream “.
Marcello soon understood that wine could be an extraordinary ambassador of a land like his Abruzzo in the world, but immediately he perceived the need to broaden the horizons of wine, to link it to other cultural elements.
In fact, if wine can also be considered an artistic gesture, why not make the Zaccagnini winery not only a productive place but also a cultural center?
A thought contained in the company’s vision: “Combining our love for art and our passion for wine”.
Hence the strong bond of the Zaccagnini brand with all the artistic expressions that are told in an extraordinary way within the company that today can also be considered an extraordinary Museum of contemporary art, from the architecture of the building itself to the dozens of works divided between open-air installations and others preserved in barriques and tanks.
The strong bond between Zaccagnini and contemporary art began in 1984 thanks to the meeting with Joseph Beuys, considered the “shaman” of art, an extraordinary artist capable of combining painting, sculpture with artistic performances that made him famous throughout the world after World War II.
It was in the Zaccagnini company that the German artist presented the “Defense of nature” project, a colossal work of great originality, still unmatched in the world; in fact, between 1972 and 1984, the artist planted 7,000 trees, all of different species, creating a permanent natural installation with a great environmental and social impact.
And from that moment the winery became not only a point of reference in the panorama of the dissemination of contemporary art culture but also one of the first wine companies in the world to invest in sustainable production from both an environmental and social point of view.
But Beuys’s artistic message also contains the concrete, we could say living, demonstration of the commitment of the Zaccagnini company to environmental and social sustainability since its birth.

A sustainability not only “communicated” but constantly demonstrated also thanks to a series of certifications (ISO 9001 • ISO 14001 • BRC • ISO 22000 • IFS and finally, from 2019, VIVA, the most authoritative certification for the sustainability of wine) obtained at in order to insure every customer and protect consumers.
From the first great love and success, to the recognized versatility of Pinot Grigio Colline Pescaresi up to Rosè, the latest who interprets international taste trends.
“How far we have traveled, from an Abruzzo place of two hundred inhabitants – says Marcello Zaccagnini -, in 1978 Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo, the wine of the Tralcetto was born: each bottle carries with it a fragment of vine, homage to the land and work. A wine that tells my story in a bottle “.
And today, the dream continues.