Few wineries carry a story like Centopassi. Its vineyards grow on land once owned by Sicilian mafia families and seized by the Italian state, then handed to a cooperative that farms it in the open, in defiance of the silence that organized crime imposed for decades.
Backstory
Centopassi is the winemaking arm of the Libera Terra cooperatives, an offshoot of the anti-mafia association Libera founded by the priest Don Luigi Ciotti. The project took root in 2005 on plots confiscated from Cosa Nostra. The name means "one hundred steps," a tribute to activist Peppino Impastato and the short distance between his home and that of the mafia boss he spent his life opposing.
The Region
The vineyards lie in the Alto Belice Corleonese, in the hills of western Sicily near Palermo, around the towns of San Cipirello and Corleone. Sites range from gentle slopes to higher parcels above 900 meters, where cooler air helps preserve freshness in a hot southern climate. The cellar sits at Contrada Don Tommaso.
Vineyards & Farming
The cooperative works land confiscated from many former mafia holdings and converted the vineyards to certified organic farming. Plantings focus on Sicilian varieties. Whites include Grillo and Catarratto, reds include Nero d'Avola, Perricone and Nerello Mascalese, the last grown at high altitude.
The Wines
The range runs to roughly ten wines, overseen with the help of consulting enologist Maurizio Alongi. Among them are the Giato Bianco blend of Grillo and Catarratto, the Giato Rosso of Nero d'Avola and Perricone, a single-vineyard Grillo called Rocce di Pietra Longa, and a high-elevation Nerello Mascalese. The wines aim to express each vineyard and soil while channeling income back into legal, dignified work in a region long shadowed by crime.
