THE ENTERPRISE
Duca Carlo Guarini Agricultural Enterprise
900 years of history and so many illustrious personages.
700 hectares of property in estates and farms.
The vine, the extra virgin olive oil, the sauces, the preserves, the cheese are the result of work and a thousand year-old attachment to this land.
Here, if you wish, is the beginning of the virtual journey to discover the places of the wine and oil of an ancient and noble family that came from Normandy and settled in Salento.

HISTORY
The Guarini arrived in Salento about 1000 AD.of Norman origin, Roger (Ruggero) is the first member of the family who can be remembered. Under Count Goffredo in 1065 he brilliantly defended Lecce from the attack of Boemondo D'Hauteville, the prince of Taranto and the first son of Robert Guiscard, forcing him to raise the seige. Alliances having been changed, Roger (Ruggero) found himself with Boemondo on an expedition to the Holy Land. Invested a Knight of the Red Cross and adorned with a gold chain with a medal of his effigy, he was appointed by the prince to be his perpetual companion and guardian. On several occasions Ruggero defended him courageously. During the war in Palestine, in the naval battle of Beirut, Ruggero saved Boemondo "who was ill in bed" and for this reason Ruggero became "one of the four knights of the ship".
After the conquest of Antioch, the first Frankish possession of which Boemondo was prince, Boemondo was taken prisoner by the Emir Danishmand during an ambush. Having enlisted under the banners of Duke Godefroy de Bouillon, on July 19th 1099 Ruggero entered Jerusalem.
In 1106 he returned to Apulia with Boemondo, who "in his honour had the old walls of Lecce, his home-town, very beautifully rebuilt, erecting every ten steps a tower surrounded by an antemural". After Ruggero many representatives of the family had the honour of holding rôles which were important for their times and for their land; warriors, knights, bishops, men of letters, of law and poets appear in the history of the family. It is interesting to remember that Saint Francis of Assisi on his return from Syria in 1219 came to Lecce to found a Franciscan monastery and it was the two Guarini brothers who gave the Saint "a number of dwellings for him and his religious", in the place where later arose the Church of San Francesco.
In the course of the centuries so many illustrious personages have been guests of the Guarini family, such as Joseph Bonaparte in 1807 and Joachim Murat, the King of Naples, who in 1814 was the guest of the Guarini family and with the stone of his ring engraved his name, Italianized as Mur�, on one of the gold framed mirrors.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF OUR ENTERPRISE

A thousand-year-old enterprise that introduces innovation: that is the Duca Carlo Guarini Farming Enterprise.
From the eleventh century, when Ruggero Guarini came to Apulia in the retinue of Robert Guiscard, till the present day with the four Guarini - Giovan Battista, Anna, Fabrizio and Januaria at the head of the family company-there is one single word: quality.
The Guarini have worked hard to make their really typical Salento wine famous, concentrating on specific areas in Salento (Igt) and on the names of autochthonous species of vine, on the varieties of centuries-old olive trees, the real wealth of the Salento area.
At the beginning of the nineties, when very few knew of the existence of 'primitivo' and 'negroamaro' grapes and the people of Salento were almost ashamed to expose the name of their autochthonous species of vine, the Guarini family brought out the first bottle of pure Primitivo, writing the name of the vine species on the label. They did the same thing with their olive oil for which they always indicate the name of the historic varieties Cellina, Scorranese and Ogliarola

Vineyards

100 hectares, of which 70 are vineyards, are situated on the Piutri estate, Torchiarolo, between Brindisi and Lecce. The autochthonous varieties- Negroamaro, Primitivo, Malvasia nera, Montepulcianoare predominant because the Guarini put all their attention on these, considering them characteristic for the production of their wine. Some clones derive from very old cultivations already existing on their land.
Among the vine species introduced recently and that have adapted themselves excellently stand out the Cabernet Sauvignon, the Syrah and the Sauvignon blanc. Among the vine species introduced recently and that have adapted themselves excellently stand out the Cabernet Sauvignon, the Syrah and the Sauvignon blanc. The soil, sandy and clayey, and the particular microclimate due to the nearness of the Adriatic Sea by which the estate is washed, render this land one of the most

ideal in Salento for the cultivation of vines.
The vinestocks bury their roots among Roman coins and remains of jars, a witness of distant times in which from these coasts Virgil admired the mountains of Epirus (present-day Albania) and the men of the ancient Roman city of Valetium to whom these lands belonged, produced those wines that Pliny remembers thus; "In the most distant places of Italy near the Ausonian sea wines are born that have their glory, 'non carent gloria'".

Wine cellar

Imagine a palace of the end of 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', the chamber where today the wines are left to settle in small and large oak casks and where the bottles of the various years are kept.
The soft light creates an almost mystic atmosphere and here the Guarini, if you go to vistit them, will tell you that for them to be vine-growers means an inheritance to be protected, land to be cultivated, a culture to be shared. They will tell you of the thousand-year-old history of their family and of how some of their wine labels speak of their ancestors and the illustrious personages to whom they gave hospitality in past centuries: Boemondo, the 'primitivo' wine dedicated to the Prince of Taranto and first son of Robert Guiscard who chose Ruggero Guarini as companion on his expedition to the Holy Land; or Mur�, the white wine obtained from Sauvignan blanc grapes, in honour of Joachim Murat, the King of Naples who was a guest of the Guarini and on one of the gold-framed mirrors, engraved his Italianized name with his ring.

The other 'barricaia', inaugurated a couple of years ago, is of recent construction and it is exactly here that the University and National Research Council have carried out important experiments for the selection of autochthonous yeasts of 'negroamaro' and 'primitivo'. In the cellar, moreover, among the modern steel tanks, the Guarini will explain the various phases of production and will show you the innovative equipment used for their wine-making and for controlling the temperature. By means of innovation the Duca Carlo Guarini Farming Enterprise conserves its tradition and quality.

"Our wines come from a very precise philosophy: use and exploit the autochthonous species of vine found in our vineyards.
Throughout the years we have had to restructure and replant about 70 hectares and during this phase many clones found on our farm for about 70 years have been grafted on the spot, in this way saving them from extinction.
Our productive process is vertical; from caring for the vineyard to bottling. As we do not purchase grapes from others and we produce wine exclusively in our cellar, we have a production line that can be easily traced.
"The wines we produce are the result of continuous experimentation in the growing of vine species and in wine-making from grapes, so that they obtain a personality of their own that meets the approval of those who drink them.
The greatest attention is paid to the relationship between quality and sale price, so as to give the consumer the possibility to drink an excellent wine at an honest price. The market we deal with is Italian, European, American and Oriental with particular distribution to restaurants and specialised shops, who are interested in a more intimate and personal relationship and appreciate the descriptions on our labels, each one of which has a name and a story to tell".

The olive-groves

The Lucagiovanni, Raostino, Colmuni, Guarini, Boschetto areas of land, all near Scorrano, make up the 265 hectares of olive-groves that the enterprise runs. They are centuries-old cultivations that are between 500 to 100 years old. The traditional cultivations normally have 70 plants per hectare in regular rows, the older ones, on the contrary, are in loose order, as they come from very old spontaneous woods which were later thinned out and grafted.
The varieties are those typical of the area, the Cellina scorranese and the Ogliarola Olive-gathering begins in the middle of October so that the olives are gathered at the moment when they begin to become a dark colour. In this period of ripening, oil of excellent quality is obtained. Given the enormous size of the trees that can produce as much as five quintals (1 quintal=100 Kilograms) of olives, the enterprise uses vibrating machines and intercepting nets, in this way solving the age-old problem of olive-gathering which once was necessarily done only when the fruit, by then too ripe, fell to be ground. As soon as they are gathered the olives are taken to the oil-press.

The oil press

Through a large heavy door of natural olive wood one reaches the oil press, a stone building built at the beginning of the nineteenth century with large star vaults. Inside the equipment for pressing the olives includes the traditional line with a grinder and seven hydraulic presses and a modern line with a continuous cycle that can press in two or three phases as many as 15 quintals of olives an hour.
Stock piling is in silos of stainless steel and in the old glass-lined cisterns underground, where the oil remains in a dark, cool place and where natural decantation takes place.
The processing, in fact, does not involve any kind of filtration, because this would endanger the organoleptic characteristies of the oil and would reduce its conservation. The fact that the equipment is more than adequate for the capacity of the olives gathered makes it possible for the olives to be pressed immediately. This is the "secret" that allows the Duca Carlo Guarini Estate to produce extra virgin oil with a unique colour, aroma and taste.

Gastronomy

On the sowable land of the Duca Carlo Guarini estates are grown cereals, vegetables and above all tomatoes with which the production of sauces and preserves has recently begun. Apart from the wines and the extra virgin olive oil it is possible to purchase sauces and delicious creams made from artichokes, olives, onions and wild apples. On the Francavilla and Calò farms, next to the Lucagiovanni estate, ovines are reared.
Under the supervision of the shepherd Paolino and his wife Graziella, for some time seasonal cheese has been produced-fresh cheese, ricotta (buttermilk curds), seasoned sheep cheese-which is immediately absorbed by the local market

Danish origin, conquered Longobard and Byzantine Apulia and than Calabria and Moorish Sicily. They founded a Kingdom with great political and artistic influence which was to last for 800 years. In 1065 Ruggero Guarini, a Norman knight, followed Boemondo Hauteville as counsellor and companion-in-arms in the adventure of the First Crusade. Today the Guarini family continue to possess and cultivate in Salento estates and farms of about 700 hectares. The wines, the varieties of oil, the cheese and the preserves are the fruit of their work and an almost thousand- year-old attachment to the region. The centre of their enterprise is in Scorrano, where there are the wine cellar and the oil mill, built in the 19th and 15th centuries.
Scorrano is a small pleasant town in the heart of the Salento peninsula, 30 Kilometres from Lecce which is, a fascinating artistic town famous for its spectacular baroque architecture. Scorrano was founded by the Roman centurion Marcus Emilius Scaurus and was an important bulwark against the advance of the Ottomans, who in 1480 had conquered Otranto.

The small narrow streets are characteristic of Scorrano and they follow the original circular line of the old walls from which one can still see the west gate called Porta Terra. On the summit of the low hill are the old Parish Church and the eighteenth century Ducal Palace of the Guarini family, built on the older, original castle.
To offer visitors the opportunity of knowing the places and the produce of its farming, the Enterprise organises guided visits with the tasting of typical Salento dishes. It also offers wine and oil tasting in the olive mill and in the wine cellar, where there is the original 15th century hypogeum dug by hand in the hard rock.