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About Winery and Wines

Carlo Hauner, of mixed background from Brescia who transplanted himself to the Aeolian islands, was the creator of the agricultural firm that carries his name. As a young man, Hauner was a painter and, not yet 20 years old, exhibited at the Biennale di Venezia. As he matured as a designer, he obtained relevant success in the international field. His passion for winemaking can be viewed as the ultimate challenge of an intense life scattered with interests.

In a trip to the Aeolian Islands toward the second half of the 18th century, Alessandro Dumas' father, a French man of refined tastes wrote: "...a bottle of Malvasia delle Lipari was brought; it was the most excellent wine that I had ever tasted in my life..." Other illustrious men were bewitched by it; others defined it as the nectar of the gods, but in 1788, it was the scientist Lazzaro Spallanzi, one of the founders of modern biology, who recounted how Malvasia was produced: "...do not remove this grape from the vine unless it is perfectly matured, knowing this from the beautiful golden color and sweet flavor that it has. The harvested grapes, previously being cleaned of decayed grains or damages, are laid out and left in the sun on a mat of swamp reeds for eight or ten days, or even more, until they wither. Then they are gathered on a clean stone surface surrounded by small walls, each one two feet in height, and then the bunches are compressed and smashed, first with a stone tied to outside of a small hollow flat block, and then with bare feet until all the juice is squeezed out...this is transfused into barrels to ferment, until it is purified perfectly suited for drinking, which will be by the following January."