Scuola di Enologia di Conegliano (Wine School)
Italy's first wine school opened here on 9 July 1876, and Conegliano has been taking the subject seriously ever since. The Scuola di Enologia sits at the top of a hill town already devoted to Prosecco, where the vines begin almost at the edge of the pavement and the surrounding Strada del Prosecco stretches roughly ninety kilometres into the hills.
The current building — inaugurated in 1924, designed by engineer Bernardo Carpenè — houses a working cellar, a small museum dedicated to the geneticist Luigi Manzoni, and a Bottega del Vino whose wrought-iron flask sign marks the entrance. The school still produces wine, still teaches viticulture, and still sells bottles from the cellar door.
💛 What travellers fall for
Regulars tend to book the cellar visit in advance rather than walk in on the off-chance — the phone reservation is quick and the difference between a guided tour and peering through a locked door is considerable. The Enoteca Regionale Veneta next door, open from six in the evening, is where people end up after: around five hundred Veneto wines poured in a room that doesn't feel like a tourist stop.
The story behind Scuola di Enologia di Conegliano (Wine School)
Antonio Carpenè, a wine chemist among the first in Italy to study sparkling-wine production, and Giovanni Battista Cerletti founded the school by Royal Decree of Vittorio Emanuele II on 9 July 1876. Cerletti became its first director and the school was named after him in 1936. The location was no accident: Conegliano sat at the centre of Prosecco country, and the region needed trained enologists.
World War I destroyed much of the original campus. Professor Michele Giunti's intervention kept the school in Conegliano rather than relocating it to Florence; the rebuilt main building was inaugurated in 1924. By 1933 a Royal Decree formalised it as a specialised Technical Agricultural Institute. Luigi Manzoni, who taught here from 1923 and ran the school for decades, developed his vine-crossing experiments on site — the Manzoni hybrids that still carry his name. A museum documenting that work opened on the first floor in 2016.
Good to know
Cellar visits require a reservation — call 0438 61524 or email during office hours (Monday–Saturday 9:00–13:00). The cellar is open weekdays until 6 pm and Saturday until 1:30 pm; closed Sundays. Conegliano is on a direct rail line from Venice, roughly an hour's ride.
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What travellers say about Scuola di Enologia di Conegliano (Wine School)
A beautiful place, like something out of a medieval film. All of us, current and former Cerletti students, consider it a part of us.
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