Cantine Valenti

From the ashes of an ancient distillery, in 2004 Giovanni Valenti with his wife Francesca and his son Alessandro decided to set up the current Cantine Valenti located in Passopisciaro, a hamlet of Castiglione di Sicilia, known for the production of excellent Etna Doc wines. Over the years, the family decides to acquire the ownership of vineyards located in the most suitable areas bordering the town, with a specific objective to pursue: to produce quality wines with sustainability. For sustainability here we mean that the production was anticipated by a careful analysis of the vocations of each parcel, during the year we aim to concentrate a large part of the work in the vineyard, according to the Etna farmer tradition, to allow to have a minimal impact on both the environment and consumer health.

The company now owns 30 hectares of which 17 are planted with vineyards and the remaining part is olive groves and ski. The districts from which the wines come are Guardiola, Santo Spirito, Bonanno, Pietramarina, Arcuria and Corvo. The terroir is markedly different, it is found both by walking within each district and between the districts themselves, and this has allowed the creation of plants following the vocational nature of each of them. And therefore from the sandy soil rich in organic matter with a low% of clay from C.da Arcurìa, "Enrico IV" Etna Bianco Doc 100% Carricante was born. The "Norma" Etna Rosso Doc Nerello Mascalese 100% is created from Cde Corvo and Bonanno characterized by a soft soil with high fertility and the presence of minerals not yet degraded, part of the same product comes from C.da Guardiola. In C.da "Santo Spirito", the company has a vineyard made up of layers of sciara that Etna has erupted over millennia. Soils rich in minerals and with a high percentage of typical sand or known as "black earth" whose drainage allows to obtain wines rich in all properties, both aromatic and with acidity and body. This is where Enrico IV Cda S.Spirito Etna Bianco Doc and Puritani Etna Rosso Doc are born. In recent years the Company has experimented with the production of a white from black, "Graft" IGP produced from Nerello Mascalese grapes selected from the various districts according to of the vintage and the orange wine "Ciuri di Lava" PGI obtained from Carricante grapes also selected by the Cde according to the vintage. The "Poesia" rosé is produced from Nerello Mascalese grapes selected from the various districts, depending on the vintage. The color is obtained by a short maceration of the must with the skins in a pneumatic press before alcoholic fermentation.

The age of the vineyards varies from 3 years, new production vineyards to 15, 20 up to more than 100 years. In C.da Guardiola the property enjoys terraces where still old pre-phylloxeric vineyards produce clusters of the highest quality which are vinified separately for experimentation.

All processing takes place in a biological regime, both in the new espalier systems with spurred cordon and guyot pruning, and in the old sapling systems. Our men have not abandoned the old peasant traditions, therefore we continue to work the vineyard with the hoe. The works that are carried out by hand during the year are pruning, shredding, binding, conditioning, defoliation, and harvesting, the latter takes place exclusively by hand and the grapes are transported in 20 kg crates in the cellar over an hour to be worked. The harvest takes us for a period of about two months, quite long, since the vineyard of each district is characterized by its ripening stage, which allows us to plan the harvest from the earliest to the latest depending on the variety, the altitude and the type of processing to which the grapes must be subjected.

In the cellar there is a large tasting room that can accommodate up to 80 people, where we organize tastings of wine and typical products by reservation, as well as lunches with barbecue meat and 0 km products, visits to the vineyards, according to the needs of our visitors.