Back in late May when all our fingers were crossed for a lovely summer (maybe they were all crossed a bit too hard in retrospect..) I was invited to Sicily with importer Les Caves de Pyrene to visit some winemakers in Sicily. Two in Vittoria the south and two on Mount Etna in the North East of the island.
With no time to waste we headed from Catania south to Vittoria to visit one of the pioneers of natural wine making on the island COS, an acronym of the three school friends who founded the winery in the 1980’s with just 3 hectares (Cilia, Occhipinti & Strano) and is now headed by Giusto Occhipinti and Cirino Strano where they have increased their holdings to around to an impressive 40 hectares, the equivalence of 60 football pitches.
What is really fascinating about Vittoria is the geological landscape, 5 million years ago this part of Sicily was deep underwater and through various movements of tectonic plates Vittoria rose from out of the water. The result is a thick layer of red sandy clay top soils, known as cerrasulo (or cherry in English) due to its bright cherry like red appearance with limestone that digs deep underground. This is important because this layer of limestone acts as a natural reservoir and retains water even during super dry spells. A handy natural hack when making wine in such a hot place!
Sandy red clay soils of Vittoria
The two stand out wines from tasting at COS was firstly their Zibbibo in Pithos (or Muscat of Alexandria as it’s more universally known) which is aged in Terracotta Amphora, another pioneering wine making technique on the island. The result was a beautifully textured skin contact wine with lots of stone fruits and citrus peel like bitterness. Secondly their Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classico which is the only wine in Sicily to be able claim DOCG classification which is a blend of Nero d’Avola and Frappato and aged in oak barrels which gives the wine a beautiful level of richness and bright cherry fruit, which to me, is one of the signature tasting notes of Frappato.
Getting back in the car and heading 10 minutes up the road we arrived at a truly stunning old villa which is home to Arianna Occhipinti. Arianna’s journey into wine started when at 16 when she joined her uncle Giusto Occhipinti to a wine fair in Italy and was instantly hooked. Amazingly she released her vintage at the age of only 22 and has never looked back, her SP68 wines are iconic and I’m sure any natural wine lover will have seen the bottles propped up on display in a wine bar window or on the shelves at any good wine shop.
Occhipinti’s amazing house and cellar, still doesn’t come close to Doncaster though!
The vines sit right in front of the estate with plots further a field being pointed out to us that head towards both the sea and into the hills behind the house. After a quick tour around and seeing the relatively new cellar which has impressively been dug about 5 or 6 flights of stairs underground, which had a library of all the wines she had bottled so far which almost made it feel like more of an exhibition than a cellar!
A library of wines in the cellar.
Tasting through some of the contrada (Cru) wines back in the house we got to experience to true power and precision of the Grillo grape through the lens of Contrada Santa Margherita, a blend of four plots which sits at 490m above sea level on chalky, fossil rich soils and is about 10km from the sea. Aged in the same style of barrel that COS uses for their Cerasuolo di Vittoria the Santa Margherita and is probably one of my stand out wines of 2026, if you’re a lover of Savagnin from the Jura then this is the wine for you to try. A truly perfect balance of lip smacking lemon like acidity, salinity, texture and a touch of reduction to keep you coming back for more, a wine not to be slept on and is now on the list at Brawn - I couldn’t resist!
Not a bad room to taste
Peter Jones
29/09/2026