1775

The Garbellottos are a family of craftsmen whose roots can be found in the Veneto Region, Treviso province more precisely, in the village of san Fior near the city of Conegliano and still more close to the Frulli region.region. Born in 1754, Giuseppe Garbellotto has been practising the craft of woodworking as early as 1775, before the birth of his son, Pietro born in 1778 and his grandson Augusto Emilio, born in 1801, succeeded him.
All three were craftsmen who expressed their talents not only through the production of casks, barrels and vats (tanks with cover), but also through the creation of fine furniture. There still exists a former workshop from this period, initially built in the vast vegetable garden near the Garbellotto home, in which a dozen people worked.

1827

Born in 1827, Giovanni Battitsta took over the reins and managed the family business for half-a-century; assisting him were his many sons, among whom there was Narciso, born in 1853, and the oldest Emilio, who emigrated to Brazil and founded the Garbellotto-Brazil branch, thus perpetuating the Garbellotto family’s artisan traditions on the other side of the Atlantic (the branch still operates in the furniture industry today, with three locations: two in Passo Fundo and one in Porto Allegre).

1887

On his side of the Atlantic, Narciso pursued, with the help of his two brothers, the traditional craft of barrel making (coopering), while at the same time achieving success as a fine furniture maker. He was so much diligent, able and esteemed cooper that he was charged from the future Emperor, Charles of Hapsburg, to repair casks of his wife’s estate (she was a princess of Italian origin with an estate in the region of Padua).

1914

The company prospered for a considerable amount of time, until World War I. All production ceased when Austrian troops occupied a region covering a large portion of North-eastern Italy stretching to the Piave River and Mount Grappa. Transformed into a war zone, Conegliano suffered greatly through requisitions and overall destruction. The family home (under the supervision of the Superintendence of Fine Arts and currently undergoing renovations) was transformed by occupation forces into a military medical station. All family archives and documents disappeared, and only a few pieces of period furniture, examples and reminders of the Garbelletto family’s proud history as craftsmen, have been saved.

1918

The war ended, and Giobatta Emilio, son of Narciso born in 1886, began to rebuild the business by essentially starting over from scratch as a Master Cooper. With two junior partners, he created the firm “Sociétà Bottai di Garbellotto & Cie” which will take, after some years, the present name of the industry.

XXème

The business developed quickly. It became the leading cooperage company in Italy and one of the top manufacturers worldwide. Its status, after the Second World War and especially in the 1980s, led to the company being approached to custom-produce wine cask and barrels for some of the most famous wineries in the world.

Supplying 712 vertical tanks (vats) of 166 hectolitres (4,385 US gallons) each, representing a total capacity of 120,000 hectolitres (3,170,410 gallons make in 4-5 years), Garbellotto contributed to make the Gallo Winery di Modesto in California the largest ageing-maturation winery in the world. The private residence of Prince Archbishop of Würzburg in Bavaria, located in a prestigious historic castle with an access stairway decorated with frescos by Tiepelo, remains indisputably one of the most beautiful sites ever equipped by Garbellotto.

2010

In April of 2010 the firm, managed by the three brothers Piero, Piergregorio and Pieremilio, enter in the Guinness World Record with the biggest cask of the world for aging wine, Magnifica, who can contain over than 45.000 bottle of wine.