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 the people who made this possible.

The history of wine, like so much that concerns human beings, is not a straight line. It has many twists and turns, and every path is valuable in its own way. Sicily is no exception; thanks to its position in the Mediterranean, it might even be considered a textbook example. A crossroads of cultures with diverse and rich ecosystems, the island has always been a place of experimentation.

Quality first

In modern Sicilian viticulture 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 to champion quality wine and also experimented with international varieties such as Chardonnay, Merlot and Syrah. The motto was: to get noticed at all again, you have to compete with the same weapons. Here, the weapons were the international grape varieties. When he became president of the IRVV (Regional Institute of Vine and Wine) in 1985, the island’s winemakers were ready, under his leadership, to open up to outside influences. Sicily set out on its path to becoming the internationally recognised quality wine region it is today.

While Diego Planeta was experimenting with international varieties, others were taking a closer look 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 COS winery in Vittoria. They also travelled to Tuscany, Piedmont and France, but their focus was on the indigenous grape varieties of their homeland, such as Frappato.

At more or less the same time, another leading figure of Sicilian winemaking took over the family estate: Marco de Bartoli. He believed in restoring the quality of Marsala, but his dream was too big to fit within the narrow confines of the law and the appellation rules. His “original Marsala”, an unfortified wine, was not allowed to bear the name “Marsala” on the bottle. His Passito di Pantelleria, Bukkuram, on the other hand, was an immediate success: rooted in tradition, yet fruitier and less oxidised.

The Etna chronicle

Once the seeds of natural winemaking had been sown, some people turned their gaze to new territories.
In 1988 Benanti and his oenologist Salvo Foti set about rediscovering Etna and Nerello Mascalese. Salvo Foti in particular was more than an oenologist: his grandfather had owned vineyards on Etna, he felt this heritage deeply and brought love and respect for the mountain and its history to his winemaking. His own project, “I Vigneri”, carries the idea of preserving the vineyards from the Maestranza dei Vigneri (a guild founded in Catania in 1435) into today’s wine culture.

Once the path had been paved, others climbed the slopes of the mountain.
Drawn by the growing fame of Etna wines, a number of “outsiders” such as de Grazia from the USA, Franchetti from Rome and Frank Cornelissen from Belgium launched their own projects in the early 2000s.

More recently, another “outsider” has founded an estate on Etna: Massimo Lentsch.
Born in Bergamo, he is one of those the island has “adopted”. Massimo clearly has a feel for volcanic soil. He is the founder of Tenuta di Castellaro in the Aeolian archipelago, where he does remarkable work with Corinto and Malvasia delle Lipari, two indigenous grape varieties of the area. The new project on Etna began in 2018 and is already producing a superb Nerello Mascalese.

The legacy

Arianna Occhipinti needs no introduction. She took the lessons of her uncle Giusto Occhipinti (COS) to heart and turned the Frappato grape into a symbol of the Vittoria terroir. She is perhaps the clearest example of how things can evolve with each generation.

Her “entry-level range”, SP68 Bianco and SP68 Rosso, is affordable natural wine with cult status. Her single-vineyard Frappatos are truly great.

In the Val di Mazara, in Camporeale, we came across the «Case Alte» estate. Here the new generation places greater emphasis on sustainability and organic farming, without shutting out dialogue with the older generations who founded the estate. A virtuous circle of interplay between past and present.

The Vino Lauria estate lies in the heart of Sicily, 65 km south-west of Palermo, in Alcamo. It was founded in 1958 by Vito Lauria’s grandfather but had to close in 1993 owing to financial difficulties. Deeply attached to his homeland, Vito Lauria decided to revive the estate. 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 at a local winery while preparing to reopen the family business. In 2010 he released his first wine. Vito relies on organic farming, and his wines reflect the character and singularity of his homeland. Vino Lauria wines are bottled without fining or filtration, with only minimal sulphur.

With his light style he represents the new Sicily and shows that finesse and freshness need not be foreign words for Nero d’Avola either. The best example 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 Sellers as the gardener in Being There:

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

— Written by Jonathan Gobbi & Mitya