I Custodi

I Custodi are the keepers, the guardians of Mt. Etna’s vineyards: to guard means to preserve the land, to maintain the traditions and to respect the people. The winery is owned by the far-sighted Mario Paoluzi, and all viticulture and oenology is under the direction of the great Salvo Foti. 

From these values and from the love for a beautiful land, where the vine was brought by man more than two millennia ago, spring the wines of I Custodi, the result of the generosity and the minerality of the warm volcanic soil, the cold of the Muntagna and the sun of Sicily.

Healthy vines of all ages, growing densely on ancient dry stone terraces, supported by their stake in chestnut wood, are cultivated in harmony with the environment that surrounds them — only by manual labor and with the help of Gino the mule — by I Vigneri, skilfull Etnean winegrowers.

This is winegrowing as it has always been on Mt. Etna for centuries, without synthetic chemicals, in respect of the people, the landscape and the nature. I Custodi's vineyards lie in some of the best suited areas around Mt. Etna: Moganazzi, Centenaria and Cosentino are in the Calderara basin beneath the northern slopes, the home of the Etnean red wines. Puntalazzo looks upon the Ionian Sea from the east side of the Volcano, while Nave sits above Bronte, on the North-West.

Mt. Etna regenerates itself constantly, and generates new life and new culture: the frequent eruptions cause the landscape to be ever-changing, and the same power drives the work of the people who persevere in living on the Muntagna.