TENUTA BELICELLO
If you want to understand my wines you need to see the Mediterranean Sea.
The boundless deep blue sea, the white, yellow and ochre beach that stretches for dozens and dozens of miles, the beautiful sandy dunes shaped by fresh breezes, covered with wild lilies and canes and reeds and tamarisks, where small black beetles draw endless doodles, where turtles lay their eggs, where gray herons and all sorts of birds come to rest during their neverending migrations.
Vines living so close to the ocean that they can turn the sea brine into vibrant salinity. Vineyards that enjoy mild winters and warm dry summers, and large temperature gaps between night and day. Ripe berries, tasty and sweet, that smell of sunshine and of a gentle Mediterranean wind.
There is the Inzolia that my grandfather planted in early 1920’s and has so well adapted to the sea brine that you won’t believe she could live anywhere else. There are the vineyards that my father brought to Belicello experimenting with international grapes: Chardonnay, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignon, which you may now look askance, but were the new frontier 30 years ago.
And then, there’s what I chose to grow: Grillo, Catarratto, Zibibbo, Perricone, Catanese, Alicante, Nero d’Avola, Frappato.
MENFI, SICILY: MY HOMELAND, THE PLACE I LOVE
In the eastern part of Belicello the terrain is very deep and calcareous, with plenty of lime stones. The soil minerals give the grapes a pleasant complexity, a good structure and amazing aromatic development. The old vines of Inzolia live here, in the vineyard Dietro le Case, as well as a new vineyard that I have reproduced through massal selection in 2007. Walking uphill, the Nero d’Avola that I use for La Bambina. At the foot of the hill, limestones give way to alluvial clays, mixing together. The soil is well drained, dark, and rich in organic matter. Here I planted a small Nocellara del Belìce olive grove and the younger vineyards: Frappato, Grecanico and Catarratto, ancient and fascinating varieties that tell the story of Menfi's terroir. The main part of the vineyards grows in the heart of Belicello, a very fertile area with clayey soils. The rich terrain is the key for the vineyards' nutrition, granting the grapes a full ripening and solid structure. Grillo, Zibibbo, Perricone and Alicante grow in this area, as well as some international varieties planted by my father in the 1990's, and enjoy the fresh breeze blowing from the sea. La Vota is an ancient loop of the Belice River, placed alongside its eastern border, where my father planted the Cabernet Sauvignon. Once covered by swamps and reeds, it is today a very fertile area and consists mainly in yellowish alluvial sands that also contain a good clay silty fraction. During the rainy seasons it is occasionally affected by the river's flood. 
La Costa
Sottostrada
Il Pozzo
La Vota
Tags: Tenuta Belicello, viticulture