TASTING NOTES
This is an earthy, intriguing skin-contact white with aromas of pressed wild flower, orchard fruit and dried aromatic herbs. The pervasive floral scent follows through to the mineral-driven palate along with dried peach, candied nectarine zest and chopped sage.
| REGION |
Italy > Sicily |
| GRAPE(S) |
60% Moscato Di Alessandria, 40% Albanello
|
| VINTAGE |
2021 |
| FORMAT |
750ml Bottle |
| ABV |
12% |
| FEATURES |
Biodynamic, Sustainable |
| SCALE |
Dry |
The SP68 is the state road that she travels that road every day to get to her vineyards. Arianna only works with vines native to the area, at an elevation of around 280 m above sea level. All production steps follow biodynamic and sustainable farming methods: Manual harvested, mainly destemmed with 15 days maceration on the skins and fermented with indigenous yeast. Aged for 8 months in concrete vats and 1 month in bottle before release. No filtration.
Arianna Occhipinti has become a seminal figure to a new generation of wine lovers. Her rise to prominence has been meteoric, and rightfully so: anyone who has met Ari will instantly vouch that her charming personality and positive attitude are contagious.
Arianna is the niece of Giusto Occhpinti, whose COS wines are undisputedly amongst the very best of Sicily. In 1998, Giusto invited her to help him out at Vinitaly for four days. Arianna was 16 at the time and knew nothing about wine, but the experience was such a good one that she decided to study viticulture and oenology in university. This quickly proved counter-intuitive, since everything she had learned from her uncle (organic viticulture, hand-harvesting, native yeast fermentations) clashed with the what she was being taught to do in school.
Undettered, Arianna started making her own wine with just 1 hectare of abandoned vines in the commune of Vittoria, and progressively expanded her estate by replanting 10 hectares of Frapatto and Nero D'Avola (the region's two indigenous red grapes) in selection massale, all trained in guyot. In 2012, an additional 7 hectares of 19 year old vines were acquired, which for the time being will be used to produce more SP-68.
