The World of Sicilian Wine. Bill Nesto
The Planetas built a winery at Ulmo in 1995. Diego’s daughter, Francesca, then joined her cousin Alessio. While Alessio learned about vinification under the wing of Corino, Francesca focused on marketing and public relations. Alessio’s brother Santi joined the team at a later date, taking over the direction of Planeta in the Italian market. Six cousins now work at the winery in different capacities. Alessio, as winemaker and production director, appears to be the leader among them. But although Diego is not involved in day-to-day matters, his word is the final one.
Planeta’s first release, in 1995, was a 1994 barrel-fermented Chardonnay that immediately grabbed the attention of the media. The winery also became known for its Merlot. The Planeta winery quickly became the best expression of the innovation and internationalization that characterized the Sicilian premium wine industry in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Its rapid success, though deliberately and quietly planned for a decade, encouraged other Sicilian producers to believe that they could sell mid-to-high-priced international-style wines to the world market.
TASCA D’ALMERITA: SICILIAN CLASSICISM
From the 1960s, Tasca d’Almerita built itself up slowly and deliberately from a large, well-managed agrarian base. The agrarian skills and instincts of the presiding Tasca d’Almerita family members—Giuseppe at first, then his son Lucio during the 1980s and 1990s—combined with the marketing genius of the winery’s sole marketing and sales agent, Ignazio Miceli (who opened global markets for the wines from Regaleali during the thirty-four-year period from 1963 to 1997), ensured that the world took notice of Tasca d’Almerita. The oldest son of Lucio, Giuseppe, an agronomist by training, entered the business in 1988, accompanying Miceli on his visits to the United States. Giuseppe’s brother, Alberto, joined him alongside Lucio: in 2005, while Lucio remained president, Alberto became Tasca d’Almerita’s CEO and Giuseppe its vice-president. Though Corvo was the first Sicilian wine brand to enter the U.S. market, Regaleali was the first to put Sicily on a label, proudly. The synergy between the Tasca family, Miceli, and the Palermo-born Leonardo LoCascio, the founder of the U.S. importer Winebow, helped shine a positive light on the image of Sicily and its wines.
DONNAFUGATA: SICILIAN STYLE
Donnafugata would not exist but for the entrepreneurial genius of Giacomo Rallo, whose business intuition was apparent when he made the difficult decision to leave his family’s traditional Marsala business in order to embrace the new market for quality wine. In a subtler way, the same statement could be made about his able partner and wife, Gabriella Anca Rallo. She was the force behind early viticultural renovations at her family’s Contessa Entellina estate. This farm is the source of most of Donnafugata’s grapes. Soon after Tachis’s arrival in Sicily as a consultant to the IRVV, the Rallos hired him to consult directly for Donnafugata, which he did until 2000. Like the Tascas and the Planetas, the Rallos carefully groomed their family members to take key roles at Donnafugata. Daughter Josè and son Antonio joined the business in 1990. While Antonio is in charge of production, Josè focuses on marketing and public relations. Donnafugata buys in about 40 percent of its grape needs, a larger share than either Tasca or Planeta buys in. Its brands by image and flavor are less linked to specific terroirs. Donnafugata front labels rarely mention the identities of grape varieties. While its wines are technically excellent, the company has the edge on its friendly rivals Tasca d’Almerita and Planeta in its creative, style-driven marketing, which expresses a confident, fanciful, and jubilant Sicilianness.
“INVADERS” FROM THE NORTH
In the late 1990s three wine investors from northern Italy arrived in Sicily and gave momentum to a wave of investment from the boot of Italy. Most significant was the arrival of Gianni Zonin. The family-run Zonin winery has more acreage of vineyards than any other family-run winery in Italy. It bought a large estate, Feudo Principi di Butera, in the province of Caltanissetta in 1997. Also in that year, Paolo Marzotto from Vicenza in the Veneto bought Baglio di Pianetto in the hills south of Palermo. A year later he invested in a sizable vineyard in the Noto area in southeast Sicily. In 2003, when his state-of-the-art winery at Baglio di Pianetto became operational, he stepped down as the chair of his family’s Santa Margherita winery group in the Veneto. In 1998, Vito Catania, a successful businessman from Milan but Sicilian by ancestry, came to the Vittoria area to start the Gulfi winery.
Italian wine producers were becoming aware of Sicily’s potential. It could produce ready-to-drink red wines in styles that would appeal to wine critics and the public. Furthermore, these wines could be made at a low enough cost and great enough volume to compete with the onslaught of New World wines on the world market. The feeling in the air was invest or be left behind. In 1999, Gruppo Italiano Vini (GIV), the largest wine company in Italy, entered into a joint venture with the de la Gatinais family of Rapitalà. The Gruppo Cooperativo Mezzacorona, a large cooperative from Trento, created the wine estate Feudo Arancio in 2001 by buying extensive vineyards and building a winery in Sambuca di Sicilia near Menfi. In 2002 the sparkling wine specialist Fratelli Gancia from Piedmont gave birth to the Capocroce brand after buying land and planting vineyards at Borgata Castellazzo in the township of Trapani. Two Tuscan producers with high-quality profiles made smaller targeted investments. Antonio Moretti, an entrepreneur and the owner of the Tuscan estate La Tenuta Sette Ponti, bought vineyards and started the Maccari winery in 2000 in the Noto area. Closer to the city of Noto, in 2003 Filippo Mazzei of Fonterutoli in Tuscany purchased a baglio in the contrada of Zisola, giving that name to the new wine estate. After 2000, most of the new investment interest moved to the Etna area and was on a much smaller scale. Andrea Franchetti from Rome began the Passopisciaro winery on Etna in 2000. The Florentine Marco de Grazia founded Tenuta delle Terre Nere in 2003. Roberto Silva and Silvia Maestrelli from Milan and Federico Curtaz from Valle d’Aosta created Fessina in 2007. Beyond these investments in the Etna area, there have been few from outside Sicily since the early 2000s.
VARIETAL CHOICES OF THE 1990S
During the late 1980s and the 1990s, interest in red wines grew, and there was a marked increase in the number available on the international market. A prestige category developed. Wines in this category competed on the world stage of public opinion. Usually that stage was the pages of magazines printed in Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, and other countries with sizable wine markets. Such international publications favorably reviewed red wines that smelled of toasted new oak and were deep in color, alcoholic, and soft textured. Following Tachis’s prescriptions, Sicilian winemakers produced red varietal wines using well-known international varieties or blends of Nero d’Avola with those varieties.
No Sicilian red variety besides Nero d’Avola has risen to international market acceptance. Though Nerello Mascalese–dominant red wines are gaining attention, the reputation of the variety remains in the shadow of Etna and its appellation. Syrah is plentiful in Sicily, but it has not been associated with Sicilian wine. The images of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot were stronger in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Now the popularity of these two varieties is on the wane. Frappato is gaining recognition, but too little is planted for it to become popular on the international market.
No one indigenous white variety became the calling card for Sicily. Inzolia, Catarratto, Grillo, Grecanico, and Chardonnay varietal wines and blends vied in the marketplace. Sicilian producers planted Chardonnay nearly everywhere on the island from 1985 to 2000. With the exception of only the hottest of climates, where the skins were subject to burning, Chardonnay made wines that combined richness on the mouth with moderate acidity. At the prestige level, barrel-fermented Chardonnay became the means by which Sicilian producers distinguished themselves on the Italian and international stages. By 2005 the focus on Chardonnay, particularly barrel-fermented Chardonnay, had begun to wane as tastes moved to other varieties and unoaked wine. Sweet wines, such as Moscato di Pantelleria and Malvasia di Lipari, a category in which Sicily had historically excelled, remain niche products.
THE RISE OF SICILIA IGT
An Italian wine law passed in 1992, Law 164, among its many provisions created the IGT (indicazione geografica tipica) category of wines. Higher legal yield limits and the possibility of sourcing grapes or wines from large areas enabled wines labeled IGT to cost less than those labeled DOC. IGT wines could be vintage dated and display a variety name as long as that variety was allowed by IGT regulations and constituted at least 85 percent of