The wines of Canicattì

Canicattì is a forty-year-old wine cooperative from the heart of Sicily. Around 480 winegrowers work together to make modern Sicilian wines that are recognizably Sicilian yet appealing to an international audience. They succeed well at this, thanks in part to the thorough modernization the cooperative has undergone in recent years.

The collaborating winegrowers together cultivate 1,000 hectares of vineyards in a rolling landscape in the middle of Sicily. It's bone dry there, which forces the vines to send their roots meters deep into the ground. That soil contains plenty of minerals such as sulfur and lime. The grapes draw these up, giving Canicattì's wines a recognizably Sicilian character.

The growers are committed to delivering good quality, achieved by keeping yields per hectare low and carefully tracking when each vineyard should be harvested. In the cooperative's cellars, the grapes are fermented separately and blended into wines of different quality levels. The cooperative has invested enormously in recent years - wine used to be fermented in large concrete vats, but nowadays most wines go into modern, temperature-controlled steel tanks. The house's best red wines are aged in oak barrels.

The cooperative has a wide variety of grape varieties at its disposal: typically Sicilian ones like Catarratto, Inzolia, Grillo, Nero d'Avola, Nerello Mascalese, Nero Cappuccio, and international varieties like Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Merlot. We find the wines made from indigenous Sicilian grapes the most interesting.

If you want to know more about this winery, here you will find the link to the website of Canicattì.