Occhipinti IL Frappato, Sicily, Italy

Winemaker's Notes: 100% Frappato. From 2 different estate parcels with vines averaging about 40 years old. One parcel is older, bush-trained vines on a sandier version of the estate's red-clay-limestone soils; the other is younger, Guyot-trained on more limestone. The sites are at a higher altitude and harvested later than the Frappato that goes in the SP68 bottling. The vines are organically and biodynamically farmed and harvested by hand. The fruit is destemmed but the grapes left whole for crushing; fermentation is with native yeasts in concrete tank with a 30-day maceration. The wine is first aged for 8 months in 25-hectoliter Slavonian oak botti and for another 8 months in concrete tank, before being bottled unfiltered.