by ARIANNA OCCHIPINTI

“Talking about Frappato is like talking about love” “But you’re still talking about love?” “Yes.” “Yes, it’s the love that flows in your veins, rebellious when it infuriates you, romantic, tactile yet hidden when you return home. When you’re young, if you set no boundaries, it sets you adrift, but, if in the end, it’s right for you, then it helps you find yourself, with full respect for both of you.”

It’s that absolutely providential intuition or encounter that you can recognize at times in life. The love that raises you up, where you can give the best of yourself. That love helps us build, and not destroy, our life, piece by piece.

I remember, walking through one vineyard after another, when, working for the University of Milan, I had to survey the Frappato di Vittoria vineyards, the first time I discovered the local contrade.

I remember that red, almost orange, earth, the thin sand clinging to my sweaty calves, my shorts and socks streaked with red, as though I had played tennis for three hours straight on a dirt court. I had given up tennis, although reluctantly, since it was hard, while I was playing, to find the serene mind the game required, that self-consciousness that perhaps only today I am slowly mastering. It was better to run the 100 metres, all out, turning the blocks into power--not the starting blocks, but the blocks, the blockages of life. In those years, I still ran, but a running different from that I do today, which is a yearning, a striving at all costs for a self, for a path to run that, if discovered, surging amidst the waves, might never leave me.

I found it rather quickly, my hands gently pushing aside the curtains of the foliage in a vineyard in Pettineo and finding those leathery, intense green leaves, observing those purplish-blue that the berries of Frappato create in reflecting the sun, revealing their subtle veins.

FRAPPATO AND I TOOK EACH OTHER BY THE HAND. I NEEDED ITS ELEGANCE, THE HISTORY IT HAD TO REVEAL, ITS BEAUTY AND LAYERS OF COMPLEXITY, THE WINEMAKING QUALITIES IT POSSESSED TO BECOME WHAT IT IS TODAY. AND FRAPPATO, OF COURSE, NEEDED ME.

You have to chew the skin to really understand that grape, just as I find today regarding the tannins in its wine. It’s a moment of revelation. The grape seemed of some royal lineage to me, in its similarity to Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo, mythic perhaps, leading to my, and others’, certainty that we could trace its journey back to some corner of the Mediterranean, far from the matrix of European viticulture that I was studying. Frappato and I took each other by the hand. I needed its elegance, the history it had to reveal, its beauty and layers of complexity, the winemaking qualities it possessed to become what it is today. And Frappato, of course, needed me. Needed someone to gather it in with love and pride, that same pride that, at its first official release, in September 2005, my very first 2004 vintage, a blend with Nero d’Avola to produce Cerasuolo di Vittoria or an entry-level wine, was on display in my words, witnessed in surprise by those who had not heard anyone defend their creation with such fervour, even though it was not yet a fully-fleshed vision. We are not children of a lesser god, a sentiment all too often evident in the attitudes of some Sicilians when, 20 years ago, they had to discuss this area, and themselves, in meetings with others.

What is the source of this pride?
The stories of my uncle Giusto; the history and life with Marco De Bartoli; the stories of Beppe Rinaldi; the French legends; the look of Giovanna Morganti when she describes that magnificent Le Trame that in 2004 brought tears to my eyes. Porthos, noble, rebellious, desperate. The virtuosity and talents of Luca Gargano. The music within and outside wine, and Frank Cornelissen’s Pindaric intuitions. The commonality with Elena Pantaleoni, with whom I took my first and second steps in understanding the sense of beauty. The passion, determination, and sensitivity of Elizabeth. The hands and greatheartedness of certain Friuli border producers, Stanko, Dario, Josko. The seriousness and beauty of the Planetas’ estates; the history of the Tascas. The dialogue, on Sicily’s other coast, with a young vigneron at the start of his career, like me, Nino Barraco, who made Marsala come alive again for me, the city where I was born, that along with my mother I had known for its myths and its sea, for the fragrance I loved of the fermenting algae, which helped me to quickly recognise reduction in wine and to sometimes even love it, a Marsala, finally, on land and not of the sea, of vineyards and farming traditions. That eats mutton and not the Stagnone mullet that I love so.
I lacked experience, and I lacked gaining harvest experience around the globe, but I had intently watched those who crafted deep, ambitious wines and I understood that, above all, an emotional connection had to be established; that accomplished, the winemaking practice followed, the simple process that allows a human being to make wine.

The artisan, composing his canvas, piece after piece, with hands that move in synchrony with the eyes and the mind, eyes than could even close, continuing to recognise thread after thread flowing through the fingers moving on their own with delicate power, the work emanating the odour of what will emerge.

For me, making wine is just this, a natural activity. And Frappato is a sweet-souled friend that accompanies me.
These past 20 years have been rich in encounters, sleeplessness, and awakenings. The first ten went by quickly, but they were nonetheless lived to the full, building a dream that began then, or better, an intuition, a call, while the second ten have become understanding, perfectionism, sturdiness, reflection, loss, and reparation.

FOR ME, MAKING WINE IS JUST THIS, A NATURAL ACTIVITY.

From the accounts and observation of the red sand, an aways-recurring motif when Vittoria producers described their wines, to the discovery of limestone. Calcarenites, turbos, chalks, marls: a brand-new world to me.

Diving from the surface into the depths. A necessary journey yet one with no return. If it is difficult to return from a world that gifts you rediscovery of your sense of taste and of persons through the offering of an artisanal wine, then equally challenging is beginning the descent into the depths that the roots take to study what you then do find in the wine, in terms of nose and taste. When rock is dry, we can’t say that it has a smell, but you can definitely smell that odour in the wine, and savour that rock on the palate. All things considered, it is precisely that: in the wine you can feel the Bombolieri limestone.

And it is right in that interplay between sand and limestone, in those nuances that are the myriad colours of kaleidoscopic soils—since the earth that “cancia ri parlo a parmo” (changes from centimetre to centimetre) can yield very different wines-- that we find, proceeding abreast, together in time, the studies of friends such as Roberto and Alfonso of Envinate in Tenerife, and in Spain, of Dani and Fernando of Comando G—an entire generation of explorers of soils and vineyards, tirelessly walking pathways that would be endless but for their good sense in not excessively confusing the consumer and in fortunately moderating the compulsive exploration these wines invite.

A similar pathway can be trodden here in Vittoria too, a terroir of truly inimitable qualities, model of an agriculture attracting the gaze of the Mediterranean to these shores. 8 kilometres from the sea, 8 from the Iblean Mountains. Between the scirocco and Provence.

Inizia così una zonazione interna delle parcelle che prima erano state prese in affitto per necessità e che poi, una volta acquistate, in un quadrato di circa 5 km per lato, nelle contrade storiche, ricche di vecchi palmenti di quella storia che fu, diventano un tesoro quando ti rivelano cosa nascondono.

That led to an interior zonation study of vineyard parcels that had been initially leased, by necessity, and later purchased. Forming a square some 5 km by side, they lay in history-rich contrade studded with a wealth of venerable palmenti (wine-making cellars), they themselves becoming a treasure as they reveal their precious secrets.

This process of identifying soils and contrade will not only enable my Frappato, which has been with me from the very beginning and which I want to celebrate today, to find its definitive direction, but it will be of invaluable assistance with the three VINI DI CONTRADA: Pettineo, Fossa di Lupo, and Bombolieri. Frappato with its vineyard in contrada Bastonaca, of sand-silt and tuff that gift it a silky elegance and cherry hue, and the large Contrada Fossa di Lupo vineyard, the first I planted, using a meticulous massal selection but with respect too for its biodiversity and a certain freedom, with soils of dark sand and compact white limestone that give fruit, acidity, and dense tannins.
But there are more, too…Santa Teresa, Serra d’Elia, Spedalotto, Fondo Monaci.

And finally from Vittoria to Chiaramonte Gulfi, exploring the Iblean Mountains, following the track of limestone amidst the cultivated fields rich in clay marl, reaching 500 metres’ elevation in Contrada Santa Margherita, in search of the ancient sea, chert, and Grillo.

A road with no way back, a journey that continues without finding its final destination, except in the roots of its own vineyards… because, after all, isn’t love all the more beautiful when it evolves?