About us

GUARDI Italia Winery was founded in 2019.
It was early this year we first travelled to Sicily on a long road trip from Vienna.
It was Sicily we fell in love with and returned to just a month later in search for the perfect terroir.
It was Tenuta Leopardi estate on the Cerasuolo wine road.

It was 2019.
The year in which we celebrated two births: our twin boys as well as GUARDI Italia Winery!

The story of

How was it founded?

It was founded by Austrian investor Rudi Czapek & his wife Doris under founding-director and agronomist dott. Fabio Guella.

Returning to a country life in balance with mother nature and among many animals and a passionate team was Rudi’s dream ever since he left his grandmother’s farm as a child to attend school in the city.

Why the lepard & the owl?

The lepard and the owl have continously crossed our paths here in Sicily.

When we first visited the ruins of the house we were about to renovate, a white owl was living in what was to become our kitchen. She has meanwhile returned after the noise of the construction has subsided. Every night we hear her familiar cries.

One night Doris woke up from a dream saying ‘a lepard is not an owl’ and we couldn’t really deal with its meaning. But the lepard and owl have also become synonyms for our twin boys.

Only many months later we found out that the estate itself was named Contrada Leopardi on the old cadastral plans of Comiso. So when we were about to design a logo, we didn’t know much, but it had to be an OWL and a LEPARD.

Passion

“We love what we do and we do what we love”

From our vineyards to your celebrations, sharing the magic of exceptional wine with the world – represents the quintessence of Guardi Italia.

Brand Essence

The love for mother nature and the curiosity for newest technologies lets GUARDI produce elegant, world class small-batch wines of Sicilian terroir that are hard to get your hands on.

People

“We live by wine and we live for excellent wine.”

Our team consists of multifaceted personalities with best professional know-how, considerable experience in vineyards across the globe and reliability. One thing we all have in common, is that we all share a great passion for excellent wines. We have turned our passion into a profession.

Identity

Our brand as a person would be intelligent, eco-conciouss, curious and international as well as well-mannered and unobtrusive with a timeless casual elegance.

Philosophy

“Question everything” – “Much more than just wine”

PARTNERING NATURE

We strive for ecological, economic and social sustainability of our company and therefore follow the strategies of sufficiency (=reduction of production quantity and consumption quantity), efficiency (=best possible use of materials and energy) and consistency (biodiversity, avoidance of garbage, closed material cycles as best as possible)

Our company aims to be 100% energy autonomous by means of renewable energy and is consistently striving to reach this goal.

Guardi

EXCELLENCE

„The more we care for our world, the better our wine”

Guardi wines are characterised by their elegance, roundness and longevity. The unique terroir with its different soil types, closeness to the Mediterranean Sea and plenty of sun produce small yields of aromatic grapes with very different expressions. World-class microvinifications bring out the best into a very limited number of bottles.

Guardi employees