COS

The Free Bacchus Story

Three school friends pooled their money in 1980 to lease a piece of land in Ragusa and make wine, without any particular idea of what they were doing. Giambattista Cilia, Cirino Strano and Giusto Occhipinti — the initials are the name.

What they found over the following forty years is that Cerasuolo di Vittoria, Sicily's only DOCG, and its two permitted grapes were capable of far more than the region assumed. The estate converted to certified organic and biodynamic farming under ICEA and began fermenting in clay amphora in the early 2000s. The amphora is not a stylistic borrowing: Frappato oxidises readily in conventional vessels, and the clay turned out to preserve its aromatic detail better than anything else they tried.

Occhipinti's account of 1991 is that talking about skin-macerated whites got you written off as a crank. It is now a standard technique across the natural wine world.

The Rami and Pithos wines have drawn 95 points from Wine Advocate and produce a style of Sicilian red with no direct equivalent elsewhere in Italy. The Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classico is the more structured expression of the same farming.

COS has shaped the next generation of Sicilian producers more than almost any other estate on the island. That is the most durable form of recognition available in wine, and the least visible from a shelf.