Occhipinti
Arianna Occhipinti has farmed 42 hectares across nine contrade around Vittoria in Sicily since 2004, most of it planted to frappato. Irrigation water has never reached these vineyards. She started with one hectare of abandoned vines, bought at the age of 21; since 2009 she has worked biodynamically. In the cellar, the grapes ferment with native yeasts in cement, twenty days or more on the skins, and the wines are bottled unfiltered. This way, in the wines from each individual contrada, the parcel remains recognizable, as pale cherry, pomegranate and herbs over fine tannin.
Vittoria and the first hectare
At 21, Arianna Occhipinti bought a hectare of abandoned vines near Vittoria, and in 2004 she began working on her own account. Today the estate spans 42 hectares across nine contrade, run from a historic farmhouse where the old palmento has been preserved. The Strada Provinciale 68, a dusty country road, runs past the estate; for millennia merchants used this route to carry Sicilian wine to the ports, and one of the estate's wines bears the road's name.
Pettineo, Fossa di Lupo and Bombolieri
In Pettineo stand 70-year-old frappato vines on sand over tuff, just under 200 metres above sea level; the previous owner had aligned the rows with a tree at the centre of the parcel. The sand yields silky tannin. Fossa di Lupo lies at 200 metres and opens northeast toward the Iblei hills; the soil is brown limestone with clay, beneath which bare rock lies exposed. The roughly 20-year-old frappato vines have supplied the wines since 2004, and the higher limestone content brings structure and a pronounced acidity.
In Bombolieri, beneath a sand layer just 25 centimetres deep, lies the limestone rock. Depending on whether clay or sand mixes with the limestone, the surface shows white or brown colour. The vines here are 25 years old and trained as alberello; they supply the frappato for Il Frappato. Of the nine contrade, Bombolieri has the highest limestone content, and its wines show finesse.
Frappato in Vittoria
Frappato has been documented in Vittoria since 1812, an indigenous variety of Sicily, and Arianna Occhipinti has made the grape the core of her work. The alberello bush training is adapted to the region's dryness; planting is dense, harvest exclusively by hand. Alongside the single-contrada wines, the estate produces Grotte Alte Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG from frappato and nero d'avola, and Siccagno from nero d'avola alone.
Cement and long maceration times
The Vini di Contrada ferment in cement tanks with native yeasts and remain on the skins for twenty days, fermentation included; they then age for twenty months in oval cement tanks of 20 hectolitres. For the Cuvée 20, Arianna Occhipinti blends frappato from Fossa di Lupo, Bombolieri and Pettineo, from vines partly over 60 years old, around 25 days on the skins, then roughly six more months in concrete. This wine then spends a further year in large Austrian oak casks before being bottled unfiltered and with restrained sulphur.