On a hillside farm in southwest Sicily, siblings Antonio and Rosa Gaudioso have taken land their family worked for generations and reimagined it as a living, biodynamic whole.
Backstory
The farm has belonged to the Gaudioso family for more than six generations, but only recently did Rosa and Antonio, who are brother and sister, decide to make wine themselves rather than simply grow grapes. They began renewing and replanting the vineyards in 2015 and waited until 2018 to present their first clean, biodynamic harvest.
The Region
Azienda Agricola Gaudioso is based in Partanna, in the province of Trapani, with vineyards and olive groves spread across the hills of Partanna and neighboring Salaparuta, an area suited to oil and wine for thousands of years.
Vineyards and Farming
Gaudioso covers around 30 hectares, with about 7 under vine and a 3-hectare olive grove of roughly 600 Nocellara del Belice trees. Farming is fully biodynamic: no synthetic fertilizers or chemical pesticides, with green manure, compost and biodynamic preparations feeding the soil and copper and sulfur used only when disease pressure demands. The family also raises sheep with a cruelty-free ethic.
Winemaking
In the Gaudioso cellar the approach is hands-off, with spontaneous fermentations in stainless steel and no temperature control. The sparkling Fritz is a joyful Chardonnay refermented in the bottle.
The Wines
Bottled under the Terre Siciliane IGP, the Gaudioso range includes Catarratto, Pinot Grigio, Syrah, Zibibbo and the bottle-refermented Fritz.
