The known origins of the van Zeller family refer back to the 13th Century, to the Flemish cities of Mechelen and Nijmegen, where they held several properties, namely, in the village of de Zellaer. During the 17th Century, in the rouse of the religious wars that ravaged the northern and central Europe at that time, the van Zellers migrated to Spain and Portugal, countries where they came to settle. Their connection to the wine business dates back from the beginning of the 17th Century, according to the wine records Livros da Imposição (1620-1640) that refer to the trader Jorge Fernandes and his son-in-law Francisco da Silva Moura, ancestors of the Portuguese legacy of the family, as the biggest wine traders registered at that time. These ancestors of the van Zeller family are the first known members of an uninterrupted series of 14 consecutive generations devoted, to present days, to Port and Douro wine trade, an unprecedented fact in any other Portuguese family "dynasty” involved in the wine business.