Exploring Nero d’Avola

A live and dynamic agricultural heart has beaten at Menfi for centuries, forming the character of people and the lie of the land, still wild and unspoilt, planted with vineyards and olive groves.

This is where our history began and where our journey commenced. At Ulmo we planted the first vines, a few metres from Lake Arancio and from the 16th century baglio which has always been a family property. An enchanting place and full of memories, which we wished to make the basis for a new future.

Menfi and Nero d’Avola

Originating in the Noto area, Nero d’Avola has succeeded over time to spread all over Sicily, demonstrating in every area its great worth and expressing itself often with different characteristics. It is also protected under the scope of the DOC Menfi. The old vines round Lake Arancio present us with a soft and fruity version, elegant and balanced, expressed in our La Segreta Rosso (50% Nero d’Avola) and in our Plumbago (100% Nero d’Avola). We named this after a wild flower which grows round our estates, mottled with a reddish purple extraordinarily similar to the colour of Nero d’Avola.

For the second stage of our journey through Sicily, we chose a place which is also close to the history of our family, Vittoria. We learnt to recognise the aroma of Cerasuolo di Vittoria when we were children, so it came naturally to proceed along the southern coast of the island to come and produce the wine here, in its great homeland.

For the second stage of our journey through Sicily, we chose a place which is also close to the history of our family, Vittoria. We learnt to recognise the aroma of Cerasuolo di Vittoria when we were children, so it came naturally to proceed along the southern coast of the island to come and produce the wine here, in its great homeland.

Nero d’Avola and Cerasuolo di Vittoria Docg

Cerasuolo di Vittoria was the first Sicilian wine to obtain – following the 2005 vintage – the Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita. Our Cerasuolo di Vittoria (60% Nero d’Avola, 40% Frappato) and our Dorilli Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classico (70% Nero d’Avola, 30% Frappato) are thus considered and included as the expressions of a great wine of the territory which deserves this recognition for the uniqueness of the variety of which it consists and for the particular characteristics of soil and climate. The DOCG also recognises the ancient connection of this territory with wine, which dates back at least to the times of the Romans. It was since 1606 however that Cerasuolo became as we recognise it today; when the city of Vittoria was established, the founder Vittoria Colonna distributed the land to the people only on the condition that they cultivated at least a part of it with vineyards.

On the southernmost tip of Europe, at the meeting of two seas, the history of Sicilian viticulture began. To these very hills, today the cradle of Nero d’Avola, the Phoenicians brought their first vines.

Noto was the third stage of our journey through Sicily. Here the idea came to us to discover the wine-growing potential of this land which after an ancient history now stood almost abandoned. We confronted the challenge with enthusiasm, that of regaining an identity and a future for a great Sicilian wine territory.

The Doc Noto 

The Noto DOC, established in 2008, has finally given recognition to a territory which is the true cradle of the indigenous variety par excellence – Nero d’Avola – which, after decades of neglect, has finally had its worth discovered. We ourselves, when we gave ourselves the aim of producing a great Nero d’Avola, worked first of all on the territory, restricting the area to its true zone of origin; at Buonivini we found the right place to plant our vines and give life to our Santa Cecilia.

When we arrived at the point of Capo Milazzo, an extraordinary place devoted to the production of wine since Roman times, we understood at once that this would be the right place to conclude our journey, completing our wish to present the ‘Sicilian continent’ through the recovery of its wines in many of its territories.

Here Nero d’Avola and Nocera have always been cultivated to produce the very ancient Mamertino, the wine of Julius Caesar. We selected methods of viticulture in keeping with the territory, carrying out research into other indigenous varieties.

Nero d’Avola and Doc Mamertino

Nero d’Avola is also the heart of one of the oldest wines in the history of the island, produced in the Messina area; Mamertino. Our wine is, as per the regulations of this tiny and valuable DOC, composed of 60% Nero d’Avola and 40% Nocera.