Wine-growing Sicily
Sicily is an island located in southern Italy. It hosts some of the most beautiful landscapes of the Italian territory. The coasts, the sea, its wine and food are the memories that every visitor takes away with him. It is a beautiful land, rich in colorful traditions and cultures. Catania, a city founded in 729 BC by the Calcidesi (Ionian population) rises at the foot of Etna, the most active volcano in Europe, and lays its shores in the Ionian Sea. Mount Etna is rich in thick forests, woods and agricultural crops, thanks to the fertility of volcanic debris. The vineyards that rise on the slopes of Etna have very ancient origins and produce wines of great finesse, both white and red and rosé. The first DOC recognized in the Etna area dates back to 1968.
The wines of Etna leave out the canons of modern wine production and unleash a personal expression intrinsic to their area of birth. The whites, produced from Carricante grapes, show strength and vigor with sharp acidities that dart straight and composed, stimulating salivation and releasing pleasant retronasal sensations. The reds, made from Nerello Mascalese and Cappuccio grapes are elegant but often austere and burst into the mouth like a riot squad ready to show their courage and their strong wild nature. They are intriguing wines that express the delicacy of a fruit grown over 1000 meters above sea level with a multi-millennial history and a tradition that still lives today hiding secrets and beauties to be discovered by pouring a single glass of wine.
Company Planeta:
The Planeta winery was founded in 1995. In just a few years it has been able to carve out a leading role in the world of wine. Thanks to foresight and passion, work in the vineyard and the ability to communicate the poetry hidden in each bottle. Planeta is a symbol of Sicily that has been able to relaunch itself. It would be impossible to represent a region so varied in history wine from a single vineyard! For this Planeta has six different key points in six different areas: Sambuca Sicilia and Menfi, Vittoria, Noto, Castiglione di Sicilia and Capo Milazzo. Thanks to the different soil and climatic conditions, totally different wines are born that tell and express different stories of the same region. Planeta supports typical varieties such as Fiano and Carricante, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon to tell the story and traditions of Sicily. In doing so, it brings the poetry and bewitching beauty of this land into the glass, which gives the wine different but equally fascinating characteristics.
Donnafugata Company:
The Rallo family has been producing wine in Marsala since 1851 and their ancient cellars are transformed into a tunnel under the city. It was one of the first families to begin producing high-quality table wine when sales of traditional Marsala began to decline, launching the Donnafugata label in 1983 and championing the potential of the region's indigenous varietals.
Today Donnafugata has four estates in Sicily: a modern winery and 283 hectares in Contessa Entellina, on the hills east of Marsala; 36 hectares in Vittoria towards the southeastern tip of the island; 68 hectares on the island of Pantelleria; and 18 hectares on the slopes of Etna. Donnafugata means "woman on the run" and is a reference to Queen Maria Carolina, who fled the court of Naples in the early 19th century with her husband Ferdinand IV of Bourbon when Napoleon's troops arrived. The couple took refuge in Sicily at the palace of Santa Margherita Belice, also the favorite residence of the famous writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and depicted on the 'Arabian Nights' label.
The wines blend Sicilian tradition with a modern approach. Among the many wines produced, Etna wines come from high altitude vineyards at 730 - 750 meters above sea level. A part of the white, exclusively from Carricante, is aged in used oak to enhance its consistency, while a component of the red, based on Nerello Mascalese, is kept in stainless steel to enhance the freshness and intensity that characterize the wines of the Etna.
