Camera di Commercio di Catania

Silvia Maestrelli, wine producer in her Tuscan estate of Villa Petriolo at Cerreto Guidi, her husband  Roberto Silva and winemaker  Federico Curtaz have decided, with passion and conviction, to stake their bets on Sicily. In 2007, fascinated by this extraordinarly beautiful and rich island, they bought a XVIII century palmento , a large covered fermenting vat made of lava stone, which overlooks a one hundred year old vineyard, some 17 acres of  Nerello Mascalese vines.

 

“I’vigne di Fessina”, as people here define the vineyards of the estate, are guarded by a magnificent tree, whose roots, like a snake, wrap around the boundary wall of the hamlet of Rovittello and whose branches soar upwards towards the Nebrodi mountains. People call it Millicucco,  the fascinating and hieratic guardian of the village.

“The most striking thing you can see when you lift your gaze up is a plume of smoke rising from the crater of the volcano, shaped like a gnome’s hat, on top of the mountain. It has puffed for over 500,000, flowing with ash and lava stone which settle and spread over the course of the seasons, sometimes washed away by the rain, sometimes stirred up and covered by newly flowing lava, hidden  for hundreds of year until Nature, patiently, once again begins to conquer the rock, creating  irregular basins, small hollows which, when farmed properly, give wonderful fruit. ’I vigne di Fessina’ are one of these natural basins, rich in the poverty of their soil. Between Linguaglossa and  Randazzo you can find many of these basins which nourish the vineyards generously and patiently. Vineyards which produce strikingly individual wines, from special soils and micro-environments which make them unique.” (Federico Curtaz).