Occhipinti

Arianna Occhipinti began making wine at 22 with a small parcel of rented vines and a degree from Milan's Enological School of San Michele. Her uncle Giusto had co-founded COS in the same area of southeastern Sicily, and the family proximity to serious Sicilian wine shaped her ambitions. What she added was independence and a particular attentiveness to Frappato — the lighter, more aromatic of Sicily's two great native reds — at a moment when the international market had not yet developed the vocabulary to appreciate it.

The estate, now managed under ICEA certified organic standards across more than 30 hectares of Frappato and Nero d'Avola, produces wines that have made Arianna Occhipinti one of the most cited young producers in European natural wine circles. The SP68 — a blend of Frappato and Nero d'Avola named for the provincial road that passes the vineyard — has become one of the defining entry-level expressions of what Sicilian red wine can offer at its most direct and drinkable.

The single-vineyard Siccagno Nero d'Avola and Il Frappato have drawn 96 points from Wine Advocate and defined the upper register of what her farming and winemaking can achieve. The wines are available in most serious wine markets and have maintained their quality consistently as the estate has grown.

Occhipinti is a rare case of a producer whose accessible wines are genuinely compelling rather than commercially diluted.