Our history
Behind a glass of wine there is a world of human experiences, within ours , there are those of a family that has a long history and a strong bond with the territory.
Imagine a palace dating back to the eighteenth century, with a “secret” garden, fragrant with the scents of citrus fruit and grapes, under which there is a hypogeum dug ou...
Our history
Behind a glass of wine there is a world of human experiences, within ours , there are those of a family that has a long history and a strong bond with the territory.
Imagine a palace dating back to the eighteenth century, with a “secret” garden, fragrant with the scents of citrus fruit and grapes, under which there is a hypogeum dug out of the stone, already used in the sixteenth century as an oil mill with seven presses and transformed into a ‘barricaia’, a cellar where the wines are now left to settle in small and large oak casks and where the bottles of the different vintages are stored.
The soft light creates an almost mystic atmosphere and if you go for a visit, the Guarinis, offering a good glass of wine, will tell you that for them to be winemakers means having an inheritance to protect, land to cultivate, culture to share.
We are a Norman family arrived in Apulia in the Eleventh century and our knights have contributed, with the Hauteville, to the conquest and the formation of the Kingdom of Sicily.
Ruggero Guarini is the first in living memory. In 1065, under the Count Goffredo D’Hauteville, he brilliantly defended Lecce by the attack of Bohemond d’Hauteville, first son of Robert Guiscard, forcing him to free the town from the siege. Once the covenants changed, he departed with Bohemond to the first Crusade in the Holy Land and came back victorious in 1106. After Ruggero, many representatives of our family had the honor to cover important roles in the Norman, Swabian, Angevin, Aragonese and Bourbons realms. There were many landowners, warriors, knights, admirals, clergymen, letters, legal, political and poets. There are memories of Accardo Earl of Valesio, son of Robert, already owner of a vineyard in 1114 and among other stories, that of St. Francis of Assisi in 1219, who returning from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, arrived in Lecce and two Guarini brothers donated the Saint “few houses for him and his religious”, as reported by the inscription still legible in the place, where, afterwards, was erected a Church entitled to San Francesco della Scarpa.
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