Arianna Occhipinti, Frappato, Terre Siciliane IGP, Sicily, Italy 2023

100% Frappato.

From multiple certified-organic parcels with vines averaging 40 years old, planted on red-sandy, limestone soils and trained in alberello and guyot. The bunches are hand-harvested and destemmed with the berries left whole. Fermentation is spontaneous with native yeasts in 20-hectoliter concrete tanks and with approximately 30 days of maceration and only gentle extraction. The wine is aged for 14 months in 25-hectoliter Slavonian oak botti and is bottled without fining or filtration. Sulfur use is minimal.

Blackberries and currants swirl up from the glass, accentuated by hints of incense and rubbed sage. This splashes across the palate, soft-textured and pliant, with crisp red and black fruits that flow across a core of tactile minerals and savory spice.

Arianna is the niece of Giusto Occhpinti, whose COS wines are undisputedly amongst the very best of Sicily. Today, Arianna Occhipinti has become a seminal figure for a new generation of wine lovers. Her rise to prominence has been meteoric, and rightfully so.