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.

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 Ciccio the mule — by I Vigneri, skilfull Etnean winegrowers. Winegrowing as it has always been on Mt. Etna for centuries, without synthetic chemicals, in respect of the people, the landscape and the nature.

In our vineyards, lying in Mt. Etna’s best suited areas at elevations between 650 and 1,200 m above sea level, we treasure for the future what we have received as a gift from the past.

We restored the ancient lava stone terraces, the main landmarks of Etnean scenery, which help us by draining the rain water and offering the best possible ventilation to our vines.

All our vineyards are tightly planted with bush-trained vines, standing in the traditional quincunx pattern – 8,500 to 10,000 plants per hectare. We guard and take care of the old vines we found, many of them more than hundred years old, and with the same love we plant and raise the new ones, always respectful of the Etnean culture and traditions.