Wine especially is a field where innovation and tradition go confidently hand in hand.
We’ve probably all heard of Marsala,
one of the oldest traditions on the island,
but the high quality Marsalas and table wines
made by the stubbornly counter-revolutionary di Bartoli family are a revelation.
At the opposite end of the island, on the very slopes of the Etna Volcano,
the Benanti family is also proving that old vines and new ideas
go hand in hand to produce superior wines
....So superior, that in 2007, Benanti was named winery of the year
by the prestigious Italian magazine Gambero Rosso.
American-born Lisa Sapienza is export manager for this award-winning, small, family-owned winery.
She took us up the slopes of a volcanic cone, now extinct,
where the soil is deep and full of minerals
from the impact of so many volcanic eruptions over thousands of years.
Benanti’s vineyards rise from around 500 meters—about 1,500 feet—all the way up to 950 meters, or nearly 3,000 feet.
Very high for Sicily, but as Lisa explains,
it means a severe contrast between cool nighttime and hot, dry daytime temperatures
that is close to a wine-maker’s perfection.
[Lisa Sapienza] We actually like to introduce any of our wines and Benanti
that these are wines from Etna (Volcano) and not Sicilian wines.
There's a lot of reasons for this.
We begin our harvest — we're actually starting now — the end of September at 450 meters,
and we finished at the end of October
(sometimes the beginning of November)
at 1,000 meters for the whites.
Sicily — which I'm gonna make this comparison —
usually finish it — I mean they usually finish about the end of our August.
Ok? They're actually fermenting their wines, right now....
....considering we're ready at mid-September.
So, it's very very different. The soil is different.
We have three times the rainfall of Sicily.
We have 1,500 milliliters a year, okay?
And we have also the microclimates because we are on a volcano.
We're in an area — but the type of terrain (volcanic) is Pumice, which means there's a lot of air inside.
If you go to the north, the type of terrain will change — again, volcanic.
Now this is high in potassium, in minerals, and for sure in our wines....
In the wines because of the varieties, because of also the ages of these vineyards, okay?
....You're gonna — you're gonna taste the terroir.
[Narrator] The vineyards are old too. This one on Monte Serra goes back to 1474, Lisa says.
Not always with the same vines of course—but the vineyard itself goes back almost a hundred years.
Many of them are ungrafted, which is to say, pre-phylloxera.
The vines are cultivated all’alberello, meaning like trees — small, independent, untrellised plants.
Like many of the most interesting Sicilian wineries,
Benanti sticks very closely to what Italians call "autochthonous varietals,"
meaning ancient vine types.
Despite its small size, Benanti wines have had a lot of success with the export market too.
Here's Ciccio Saltano again.