Arianna Occhipinti has quickly become one of the hottest names in natural/minimal intervention wine not only in Italy but across the globe. Arianna is the niece of Giusto Occhipinti, whose COS wines are amongst the very best of Sicily. In 1998, Giusto invited her to help him out at the wine exhibition, Vinitaly. Arianna was 16 at the time and knew nothing about wine but she enjoyed the experience so much that she decided to study viticulture and oenology. Unfortunately, this ended up being a little counter-intuitive as everything she had learned from her uncle such as organic viticulture, hand-harvesting and native yeast fermentations clashed with what she was being taught in school. Undeterred, Arianna started making her own wine with just one hectare of abandoned vines in the commune of Vittoria. Over the years, she has progressively expanded the estate by replanting 10 hectares of the region’s indigenous Frappato and Nero D’Avola. In 2014 Arianna built herself a new cellar giving her some desperately needed additional space which permitted her to start a new program of concrete fermentation and aging for both the SP68’s, which used to be produced in stainless steel and fiberglass. The estate is about 15 km from the Mediterranean with the vineyards planted at 250 metres above sea level. All her vineyards are run on organic and biodynamic principles and all fruit is hand harvested. The winemaking process is natural with fermentation occurring spontaneously, no temperature control, no fining, no filtration and only minimal sulphur additions at bottling. The style of Occhipinti is fresh and pure with incredibly cool fruit. The wines are delicate yet full flavoured and glide across the palate.

The SP68 is a blend of Nero d’Avola and Frappato. It is named after the main road that passes near Adrianna’s hometown of Vittoria in the south of Sicily. There’s some real dark fruit character in this wine. Blood plums, wild cherry, mulberry, and some tangy cranberry. Savoury spice, dried herbs, smoke, leather, earth. There are layers of complexity yet it’s so fresh and clean on the palate it is just an absolute joy to drink!