In an effort to prevent the demise of smaller cooperatives, in 2010 the regional government of Sicily proposed awards of up to five hundred thousand euro for new consolidations of existing cooperatives. One beneficiary of this program was a large consolidation that was born in 2008 when two cooperatives united under an umbrella company, Cantine Siciliane Riunite. As of 2012, its member cooperatives numbered ten, with a total 13,375 hectares (33,050 acres) of vineyards. The managing team commercializes, promotes, and bottles the wines of the members. At Vinitaly 2012 the cooperative presented its first wine, Sicili, a white made by blending lots of Catarratto wines of member cooperatives.
THE SETTESOLI EXCEPTION
There is one exceptional cooperative: Settesoli. Settesoli took initial steps toward bottling quality wine in the mid-1970s. As of 2010, 58 percent of its wine production was sold in bottle—that is, thirteen million bottles annually. The Settesoli cooperative is in Menfi, a city on the southwest coast of Sicily, and played a seminal role in the renovation of Sicily's quality wine sector, characterized by privately owned companies. It was formed in 1958. Typically, small, relatively poor farmers are the founding members of cooperatives. Settesoli's farmer-founders came from the upper, middle, and lower classes, and its socioeconomic mix remains unusually diverse. Today the combined six thousand hectares (14,826 acres) of Settesoli's twenty-three hundred cooperative farmers account for 5 percent of Sicilian vineyards, making the company the largest in Sicily to grow its own grapes and vinify and commercialize its own wines. Its wines have a reputation for value for money and are well distributed in domestic and export markets. Beyond the diversity of its founding members, another underlying reason for the success of Settesoli could be its location. During the 1600s, Menfi was one of several areas in Sicily where farmers were allowed to lease property as a step toward ownership, in the arrangement called enfiteusi. In most areas of Sicily, landless farmers worked for only a percentage of their crop. The empowerment associated with working toward land ownership and hence toward self-determination may be embedded in the psyche of Menfi's citizens. Today it is one of the cleanest and best-organized towns in Sicily. Citizens speak well of their town and its key economic engine, the Settesoli cooperative.
Most Sicilians and foreign specialists attribute a large part of Settesoli's success to its remarkable former president, Diego Planeta. He became president of Settesoli in 1973 and resigned in May 2012. Forward-thinking and dynamic, he skillfully managed the company's business and internal politics, relationship with the region of Sicily, and position in world markets. Early in his career, Planeta believed that world consumers would take note of Settesoli and Sicilian wines only if those they first encountered were similar in style and name to wines already present in their own markets. In 1985 he advocated the experimental planting of internationally recognized yet nonnative varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, and Syrah. He linked these plantings and those of native varieties with the innovative research of the Istituto Regionale della Vite e del Vino ("Regional Institute of Vine and Wine” see below). As the trial results came in, Settesoli paid its farmers to plant those varieties that performed the best and were likely to result in wines that the market would appreciate. In 1989 Planeta lured the Piedmontese enologist Carlo Corino away from his job as the technical director of Montrose Wine in Australia to become Settesoli's chief enologist. Corino had grown up in and was trained at the School of Enology in Alba, the town closely associated with the wines Barolo and Barbaresco. His professional background, a blend of Old World and New, was ideal to help project Settesoli into the modern wine world. From 1989 to 1994 he introduced many of the technologies that he had seen in Australia to Settesoli. His focus was on preserving the freshness and flavor of harvested grapes in the final wine.
PROTAGONISTS OF THE QUALITY WINE INDUSTRY FROM 1950 TO 1990
Before the 1950s there were few producers of quality wine in Sicily. Although it had many producers of Marsala, a fortified wine that became world famous in the nineteenth century, Sicily had only two surviving producers of quality still wine: Duca di Salaparuta, known for its brand Corvo, and Tasca d'Almerita, known for its brand Regaleali. Duca di Salaparuta has the longest history, dating back to 1824. Succeeding the founder, Giuseppe Alliata, and his son Edoardo was Edoardo's grandson Enrico, who successfully guided Corvo through the difficult first half of the twentieth century. Enrico had worked in a Bordeaux winery and returned to further refine Corvo Bianco and expand the range of wines produced. Duca di Salaparuta showed that Sicilian wine, previously known as alcoholic and coarse, could be stylish and elegant yet modest in alcoholic degree. In 1961 Enrico's daughter Topazia sold the winery and brand to the region of Sicily. ESPI (Ente Siciliano per la Promozione Industriale), a department for industrial promotion, managed the winery for the government. Remarkably, under public ownership the company expanded and maintained high standards. During the 1970s, Corvo White and Corvo Red became the first Sicilian wines to gain wide popularity in the United States, though the label mentioned only Italy, not Sicily, as the site of origin. Corvo's U.S. importer, Paternò, played an important role in its success. By the 1980s, Duca di Salaparuta was producing eight million bottles of wine per year, a staggering number for a Sicilian wine producer. From 1974 to 1997 its Piedmontese winemaker, Franco Giacosa, traveled throughout Sicily, selecting the best sources of fruit. He helped perfect the estate's top red wine, Duca Enrico. This 100 percent Nero d'Avola wine, first issued with the 1984 vintage, established the potential of this vine variety.
By 1880 the Tasca d'Almerita family was bottling wine under the name of their palazzo, Villa Camastra, which had extensive vineyards in the plain surrounding Palermo. Though production was more limited than at Duca di Salaparuta, the wine won awards and acclaim. Production stopped after the turn of the twentieth century. The family also owned an enormous farm, Tenuta di Regaleali, at Vallelunga in the north-central highlands of Sicily. Though there were vineyards there, the modern era of Regaleali wines began in 1957, when Giuseppe Tasca and his wife, Franca Cammarata, took over management of Regaleali. During the 1960s they emphasized in-bottle over bulk production and developed their estate's principal wines, Regaleali Bianco and Regaleali Rosso. During the 1970s they introduced modern vine training and trellising to the farm, expanded viticultural activities, and refitted the winery. In 1970 Riserva del Conte, renamed Rosso del Conte in 1979, became a standard-bearer for quality Sicilian red wine. This wine was labeled as being produced by Regaleali initially, then as produced by Tasca d'Almerita, to disassociate it from the less-expensive Regaleali brand. Lucio Tasca, Giuseppe's son, had begun working alongside his father as early as 1961. He moved the estate into the current of world wineries that vinified French vine varieties. With difficulty, he convinced his father to allow him to experiment with one half acre. In 1985, Lucio planted Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Sauvignon Blanc. The Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon gave great results and the Pinot Noir good ones. The Sauvignon Blanc was similar to the estate's preexisting Sauvignon Tasca, an old biotype identified by Tasca in the 1950s. The estate's first experimental Cabernet Sauvignon was the 1988 vintage. Its first commercial vintage of Chardonnay was the 1989. Both wines were released to the market in 1990. Pinot Noir was used in a blend with Chardonnay to make a sparkling wine that debuted in 1990 as a wine that the Tasca family shared with friends. The company purchased its first French barriques in 1988. The Tasca bottlings of Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon were positively reviewed and brought attention to the estate. They were the first internationally recognized versions of these varietal wines in Sicily.
During the nineteenth century, a small number of wealthy Sicilian wine producers sought enological help directly from France. During the twentieth century, enologists from Piedmont were the most influential. In that region of Italy, careers in viticulture and vinification are considered worthy and respectable, much more so than in Sicily. The caliber of Piedmontese wine professionals has been very high. Moreover, the region's wine merchants have been deeply involved in the transport, transformation, bottling, and sale of Sicilian wine throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the 1960s Sicily was transitioning from supplying the world with roughly made vino da taglio to, during the 1970s and 1980s, making stable, good-value table wines. A key person who brought the requisite vinification technology to Sicily during this era was the Piedmont enologist Ezio Rivella. He was one of Italy's first enological consultants. In 1963 he formed a wine consultancy company, Enoconsult. In that year, he visited Sicily