I Custodi ‘Ante’ Etna Bianco DOC 2020

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

90% Carricante 5% Grecanico 5% Minnella from Contrada Puntalazzo on the Eastern side of Etna facing the Ionian Sea at 750 to 900masl. Vine age of 15 to 40 years.

Those who stand on the highest point of Contrada Puntalazzo enjoy an unforgettable view of the Ionian Sea, from the Strait of Messina to the Gulf of Catania. From afar they greet the mountains of Calabria, while almost a thousand meters below the scenery is dominated by the marina of Riposto, the ancient port of Etna, from where Etnean wine departed to distant destinations. On the terraces sloping eastward, I Vigneri have restored the old dry stone walls, then planted fourteen thousand Carricante vines in a quincunx planting with a meter by meter sixth.

About I Custodi

With a name that translates to “the guardians,” native Sicilians Mario and Manuela Paoluzi at I Custodi consider themselves guardians of Etna’s vineyards. Their four plots each sit at different elevations around Mt. Etna, providing a diversity of expressions of their native grapes. During their first visit to the Moganazzi vineyard, Mario and Manuela were inspired by a natural amphitheater framed by walls of black lava blocks, with a traditional wine pressing house in the center. They used the healthy, half-century old vines found there to make their first red wine, called Aetneus. They also found an extraordinarily high concentration of ungrafted vines in their Vigna Saeculare vineyard, with some of them more than two centuries old.

Phylloxera, an unfair tax regime and the emigration of many farmers almost succeeded in putting an end to this history with such ancient roots. Only in the last two decades has the work of an enlightened few, such as our winemaker Salvo Foti, enabled the rebirth of wine on Etna, allowing it to take its rightful place among the great European terroirs.

Guardianship means preserving the land, maintaining traditions and respecting people. From these values and from the love of a wonderful land like Etna, where the vine was brought by man more than two millennia ago, come our wines, fruit of the generosity of the warm volcanic soil and its minerality, the cold of the “Muntagna” and the sun of Sicily.

“When people come to visit I Custodi, you would get the impression that we are running an open-air museum of Etnean viticulture and not so much a winery. That we have been able to make also some quite drinkable wines in the process (mostly thanks to the hard work that Salvo Foti’s Vigneri are doing every year in the vineyards) is of course a source of gratification. But mostly we are happy every day to be able to have the most wonderful job in the world: to preserve the vineyards of Mt. Etna and to make the wines that this spectacular terroir deserves.” Mario & Manuela Paoluzi

In the Vineyard

Healthy vines of all ages, supported by their chestnut poles, densely populating (8000 vines per hectare) impervious dry lava stone terraces, are cultivated in harmony with the environment that surrounds them only by the strength of the hands of our winemakers, wise Etnean vintners. In a natural, organic way, as has always been done on Etna for hundreds of years, without synthetic chemicals, respecting people, landscape and nature.

Etna constantly regenerates itself, and causes new life and culture to be generated: frequent eruptions never make it the same as it was, and the same force has the work of the men who persist in inhabiting the Muntagna. Successive lava flows over the millennia have left a varied terrain. As much as we are helping them with our work, the vines must struggle to survive. Some may sink their roots into fertile soil, others find only bare rock. The microclimate is marked by extreme variations; we have cold temperatures in winter, almost Alpine, but in summer the hot Sicilian sun brings us back to the South. And drought is felt in the volcanic, sandy soils. Only with a lot of effort can we retain that little bit of moisture in the soil that allows the plants not to have to give up.

In the Winery

The grapes are harvested by hand, the second half of September with careful sorting and placed in low crates to be brought intact to the winery, where they are pressed whole with soft pressing of the bunch. Fermentation takes place at a temperature of 20°C in stainless steel. Aging: 18 months in the same steel tanks. Aging: At least 12 months in bottle.

Where in the World is I Custodi?

I Custodi is located on the northern slopes of Mount Etna, Sicily, Italy between the townships of Passopisciaro & Pietramarina.