Notes on natural wine in Sicily

Natural winemakers are well established on the island of Sicily today. But let us take a brief detour to discuss the people who made this possible.

The history of wine is, like much that concerns mankind, not a straight line. It has many turns and branches, and each path is valuable in its own way. Sicily is no exception, or one might even say it serves as a prime example of this thanks to its location in the Mediterranean. As a crossroads of cultures, with diverse and rich ecosystems, the island has always been a place of experimentation.

Quality First

In modern Sicilian winemaking, it was indeed Diego Planeta who led the region out of a (too) long history of bulk wine and overproduction. In the second half of the 1970s, he began advocating for quality wine and also experimented with international grape varieties such as Chardonnay, Merlot and Syrah. The motto was: to make an impression again, one must compete with the same weapons. The weapons here were international grape varieties. When he became President of the IRVV (Regional Institute for Vine and Wine) in 1985, the winemakers of the island were ready to open themselves to outside influences under his leadership. Sicily began its journey to becoming the internationally recognised quality wine region it is today.

Whilst Diego Planeta was experimenting with international grape varieties, others looked more closely at what else the island had to offer.

Pioneers of Sicilian Natural Wine

In 1980, a group of friends, Giambattista Cilia, Giusto Occhipinti and Cirino Strano, founded the winery COS in Vittoria. They also travelled to Tuscany, Piedmont and France, but their focus was on the indigenous grape varieties of their country, such as Frappato.

At roughly the same time, another leading figure in Sicilian winemaking took over the family winery: Marco de Bartoli. He believed in restoring the quality of Marsala, but his dream was too grand to fit within the narrow confines of the law and appellation rules. His „Ur-Marsala“, an unenriched wine, was not permitted to bear the designation „Marsala“ on the bottle. His Passito di Pantelleria, Bukkuram, on the other hand, was an immediate great success: tradition-conscious, yet fruitier and less oxidised.

The Etna Chronicle

Once the seed of natural winemaking had been sown, some people turned their eyes to new territories.
Benanti and his oenologist Salvo Foti began in 1988 with the rediscovery of Etna and Nerello Mascalese. Above all, Salvo Foti was more than an oenologist: his grandfather had vineyards on Etna, he felt this heritage and complemented winemaking with love and respect for the mountain and its history. His own project „I Vigneri“ carries forward the idea of preserving the vineyards from the Maestranza dei Vigneri (a group founded in Catania in 1435) to today’s wine culture.

Once the path had been trodden, further individuals climbed the slopes of the mountain.
Attracted by the growing reputation of Etna wines, in the early 2000s some „outsiders“ such as de Grazia from the USA, Franchetti from Rome and Frank Cornelissen from Belgium began their own projects.

Recently, another „foreigner“ has founded a winery on Mount Etna: Massimo Lentsch.
Born in Bergamo, he is one of those who have been „adopted“ by the island. Massimo clearly has a feel for volcanic soil. He is the founder of Tenuta di Castellaro on the Lipari Archipelago, where he does remarkable work with Corinto and Malvasia delle Lipari, two indigenous grape varieties of the region. The new project on Etna began in 2018 and is already producing a magnificent Nerello Mascalese.

The Legacy

Arianna Occhipinti needs no introduction. She took the lesson from her uncle Giusto Occhipinti (COS) and made the Frappato grape a symbol of the terroir of Vittoria. She is probably the clearest example of how things can evolve with each generation.

Her „entry-level line“ SP68 Bianco and SP68 Rosso are affordable natural wine cult classics. Her single-vineyard bottlings of Frappato are outstanding.

In Val di Mazara, in Camporeale, we discovered the winery «Case Alte». Here, the new generation places greater emphasis on sustainability and organic farming, without refusing dialogue with the older generations who founded the winery. A virtuoso cycle of interactions between past and present.

The winery Vino Lauria is located in the heart of Sicily, 65km south-west of Palermo in Alcamo. It was founded in 1958 by Vito Lauria’s grandfather, but had to close in 1993 due to economic difficulties. Vito Lauria, deeply connected to his homeland, decided to revive the winery. After studying viticulture and oenology at the University of Udine and working for several years in northern Italy, he returned to Sicily in 2005.

He worked in parallel at a local winery whilst preparing the reopening of the family business. In 2010, he brought his first wine to market. Vito relies on organic farming, with the wines reflecting the character and distinctiveness of his homeland. Vino Lauria’s wines are bottled without fining or filtration. Sulphiting is kept to a minimum.

With his light style, he represents the new Sicily and demonstrates that delicacy and freshness need not be foreign concepts for Nero d’Avola. The best example of this is the Zio Paolo Nero d’Avola.

At the end of this very brief overview of the current state of natural wine in Sicily, I can only borrow the optimism of Peter Seller as a gardener in Being There:

„As long as the roots are not cut, all is well. And in the garden, all will be well“.

— Written by Jonathan Gobbi & Mitya