The origin of the Attems family was Friuli, as stated in a 1025 document preserved in the historical archives maintained by the family. The land under the name “Attems infra Comitatus Fori Julii” was donated to Corrado by his wife’s family, Matilde Marchesa of Moosburg.
The founder of the Petzenstein branch was Wolfgang d’Attimis, who, in 1540, became vice-captain of the county and named the Montesanto sanctuary. To his son, Andrew, Archduke Charles, granted the right to add to the name the predicate von Petzenstein. Among the descendants of Andrea, the members of the Petzenstein family were the brothers Sigismondo, Carlo Michele and Lodovico who lived in the period of Maria Theresa of Austria and gave the town of Gorizia Carlo Michele a great deal, embracing the religious career was elevated by Maria Theresa to the rank of prince of the Holy Roman Empire and on April 12 1752 Pope Benedict XIV raised him to the first Archbishop of Gorizia.
The Villa Attems estate located in Lucinico in the Collio Goriziano area has been documented since the late fifteenth century as a possession of the ancient noble Gorizia family of Postcastro.
The heritage was acquired in block from the Cernozza still an ancient noble family of Gorizia.
The succession will be endorsed by the evolution of the surname in Cernozza de Postcastro. The Chermenas became the last feudal lords of Lucinico before the arrival of the Attems.
Beninia’s niece, Baroness Cernozza de Postcastro, will marry Massimiliano Attems in 1649, bringing the Estate as a dowry. From that moment on the tenth Lucinichese will appear in the heritage of the Attems
called “heirs Cernozza de Postcastro”.
In the twentieth century, it was Count Sigismund Douglas Attems Petzenstein who perpetrated in the name the noble descent of the ancient and aristocratic family. Son of Count Giovanni and Baroness Tefania Biedermann de Turony was born on 23 May 1914, exactly one year before Italy declared war on Austria – Hungary, signing, in fact, the beginning of a geopolitical and territorial transformation.
The town of Lucinico became a land of war, of continuous passages and looting, practically destroyed in its entirety by the alternation of the front now Austrian now Italian. After four long years, the corner of paradise, the Austrian Nice so celebrated by Czoernig is only a shadow in the memories of those who survived. Years pass, and much of the stubbornness and resoluteness of the eighteenth-century man are found in Douglas in the acute ability to transform the Collio into a unique and representative product of the entire territory of Gorizia. Promoted the construction in 1963 of the Consorzio del Collio, of which he became president in 1965, looking with active hope at the protection of the territory and its borders.
For Douglas Attems the Collio was everything. He created a D.O.C. of which he remained president until 1999. He died in September 2002. A year earlier, in September 2001, his daughter Virginia married Paolo Giasone with whom he started the restructuring and redevelopment of the entire estate.
From this union were born two girls, Eugenia and Ludovica. In 2009 Paolo and Virginia Giasone Attems Petzenstein published a book on the history of the family in ‘900 published by the Laguna publishing house: “Sigismund Douglas Attems Petzenstein Count of S.R.I. Story of a family in Mitteleuropa of the’ 900”.
The estate located in Collio Goriziano has been completely redeveloped and renovated by Paolo and Virginia Giasone Attems Petzenstein. Initially, the site dedicated to this activity today was based in 1945 on the trade-in poultry and rabbit farming. In the same period, the building used as a cellar for a willingness was expanded to invest more on wine production and marketing.
In the park of Villa Attems the fountain designed by Nicolò Pacassi in 1760, architect at the court of Maria Theresia of Austria, miraculously not attacked during the 1st World War and subsequently moved from the park of the Villa di Piedimonte to that of the current Villa in Lucinico. The well that is located in the garden of the Villa was initially used by a part of the Lucinico community. The country has four more uniformly
dislocated. Today it has only a historical and ornamental function. Finally, there is also a bunker dating back to the First World War where the head of army had set up his own Villa Attems.