Seminars and company events
Seminars, congresses, product presentations, workshops and gala dinners for up to 450 guests can be organized at Castel Katzenzungen, a castle in Prissian, in the municipality of Tisens (Tesimo), on the slopes between Merano and Bolzano in South Tyrol. The castle has 14 halls, wood-paneled Stube rooms, vaulted cellars and a chapel, and it lists Allianz, BASF, Red Bull Italia and IBM among its corporate clients.
Technical equipment and teaching aids are arranged for each meeting. Themed formats are a strength of the house: historic banquets, medieval evenings, fashion shows and gala dinners. Cultural events such as exhibition openings, readings and concerts also take place here. Wine tastings and guided tours of the castle and the vineyard are offered for groups of at least ten people, which works as a break in a seminar day or as an incentive program.
Weddings and receptions
Weddings take place in any season for up to 200 guests, and the party can run into the early morning. The castle has its own chapel, and the stone bridge in front of the entrance is lit with torches, with 100 candles set out for the ceremony and the arrival of guests. A wedding planner, a florist, a jeweler and a wine supplier work with the castle as partners.
Rooms and capacities
The castle states a maximum of 450 guests for events and 200 for weddings. Beyond the 14 halls, events use the Stube rooms, the vaulted cellars, the old smokehouse kitchen, the chapel and the garden in front of the castle under the stone bridge. One hall is named Schlandersberg, after a former owner family. The site does not give capacities per room.
Accommodation
There are no bedrooms at the castle. It names the Four Points Bolzano as a partner hotel, and Merano and the villages of the Tisens plateau offer further hotels.
Catering
A starred chef from South Tyrol cooks for events, with festive banquets, wedding buffets and gala dinners, full setup and service. The castle pours premium South Tyrolean wines and those of the biodynamic Plan dell'Orino estate in Montalcino, Tuscany. Its own Versoaln white wine is made in very small quantities, at most 500 numbered bottles.
History and setting
The castle is first mentioned in a document of 1244. It passed from Henricus de Cazenzunge to the Fink and Schlandersberg families, then through the counts Thun and Fuchs to the lords of Breisach, who gave it much of its present Renaissance form. After the Breisach line died out, the building declined. Josef Pobitzer rediscovered it in 1978, and his son Ernst Pobitzer led the restoration.
In front of the castle grows the Versoaln vine, an indigenous white grape of Prissian. The tree-ring laboratory of the University of Göttingen dated it in 2004 to more than 350 years, and it covers a pergola of over 350 m² at about 600 m above sea level.
Getting there
The address is Via San Martino 15, 39010 Tisens. Merano and Bolzano both have railway stations, and Bolzano Airport is the nearest airport, with Innsbruck and Verona as larger alternatives.
