Il Vignaiolo Storico

Di Nichi Stefi

The Historic Vine Dresser By Nichi Stefi The business is run by Carlo; his wife Maria and their children Carla and Marco are by his side and happily participate.

He is a wine technician and teacher at the Faculty Of Agriculture in Catania, works following the intuitions and choices that his father had put into action, while varying the systems, modernising every phase, convinced, as one should be convinced, that the vineyard produces the wine and the only job of the cantina is to not damage the product.

“The climate is suitable”, he says, “even at 38° parallel, thanks to the altitude, the vines are all around 650 metres above sea level, the summers are not torrid, the temperature never goes above 30°, and the rainfall is never more than 1,500 mm, on the other hand, it runs off easily thanks to the slope of the land; the wines therefore don’t have, as their Sicilian origin could make one think, an elevated grade of alcohol – rather they are rich of a fixed acidity and extracts”.

The vines are those the discipline expects: carricante for the Etna Bianco Superiore, and nerello mascalese and nerello mantellato for the Etna Rosso. The terrain, arranged in large terraces thanks to their favoured amphitheatre position benefit from a long period of sunlight exposure, its volcanic and rare surfacings of the lava outcrop have been eliminated, and the remaining solid residue has contributed to the creation of a rich skeletal material, and is particularly useful to the cultivation of the vines.