Gulfi

The fact that my relationship with Sicilian wines is special might be obvious. What not many people know is that it all started at a Gulfi stand at the very first Kyiv Wine festival. When we met, I was already tired (read: drunk). I almost passed by, disgusted with my own weakness, when the Gulfi representative stopped me and offered a glass. I looked at her welcoming face. I looked at the naked behind on the label. And I realised there were no reasons to reject this present from Dionysus. I don't remember exactly which wines I tasted that day. The Gulfi imprint is what I took out of it.

The naked behind, by the way, has a meaning. It's a detail from an ancient mosaic at Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina, depicting Eros (Cupid) and Psyche (Beauty). Out of envy from Venus, they were forced to love each other in secret; their daughter was Voluptas, the goddess of sensual pleasures. Sicily is Psyche, Gulfi is Eros, and their child is wine.

The estate itself is less mythological. Founded in 1996 by Vito Catania, a Ragusano who came home from a chemical-industry career in northern Italy to expand his father Raffaele's small vineyard holdings. From the start, the project was guided by Salvo Foti - one of Sicily's most uncompromising enologists. Vito died in 2017; today Gulfi is run by his sons Matteo and Raffaele (named for his grandfather).

Roughly seventy hectares across three very different zones:

• Iblei hills (Chiaramonte Gulfi, Ragusa province) at around 400 metres - whites, Cerasuolo di Vittoria, and entry-level Nero d'Avola
• Pachino (Val di Noto, Syracuse province) - home of serious Nero d'Avola and the estate's defining gesture
• Randazzo on Etna at 850 metres - old Nerello vines, some over a hundred years

Everything is certified organic, alberello (bush-vine) trained, hand-worked, fermented with native yeasts, and farmed without irrigation.

The defining gesture is Pachino. Gulfi is widely credited as the first Sicilian producer to bottle Nero d'Avola by contrada - four single-cru bottlings from neighbouring plots in the same village, demonstrating that Nero d'Avola reads terroir the way Nebbiolo does in Barolo or Pinot Noir does in Vosne. This was unheard-of for the grape, which had been treated (and blended) as muscle rather than voice. Now it speaks four different languages:

• Nerosanlorè - Contrada San Lorenzo, usually the flagship, the most elegant of the four
• Nerobufaleffj - Contrada Bufaleffi, sand on limestone and black clay
• Nerobaronj - Contrada Baroni, black clay
• Neromaccarj - Contrada Maccari

Beyond Pachino: Carjcanti (100% Carricante, the flagship white), Valcanzjria (Carricante and Chardonnay), Nerojbleo (entry-level Nero d'Avola from the Iblei), Rossojbleo, Reseca (Etna Rosso), and the Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG. Every serious label carries a quiet little "j" in the name - a nod to local dialect and an unspoken declaration of allegiance.