Giovi
Randazzo, Sicilia, Italy
Giovi began as a hands on obsession that started with 48 kilos of apples, an experimental brewing kit, and a curiosity for ancient methods, until Master Distiller Giovanni La Fauci turned that “youthful recreation” into a real vocation and founded the distillery in 1987 in Valdina, near Messina, in the warm Tyrrhenian setting that looks out toward Capo Milazzo and the Aeolian Islands. From the start, the goal was simple and stubborn: never stop chasing quality, rebuilding tools by hand, and capturing the “unmistakable perfume” of the raw material, whether fruit gathered on the slopes of Mount Etna or marc sourced across Sicily from places like Pantelleria, the Marsala area, and Noto. In the distillery, an old discontinuous “Zadra” alembic is modified to suit a very slow, wood fired distillation, while in the vineyards around Randazzo (including Allegracore, Passopisciaro, and Pirao) the vines are farmed naturally without chemicals and the work begins with ripe, carefully selected grapes and spontaneous fermentation with no added yeasts, followed by refinement in bottle. It is a family story too, with Mariella Torre anchoring the day to day, Giuseppe La Fauci learning the secrets of artisan distillation while innovating with an eye on mixology, and Rocco La Fauci steering the business side, all in service of a philosophy built on quality and authenticity.
