High on a windswept rise near Palazzo Adriano, the village where Cinema Paradiso was filmed, sits an old Sicilian farm that grew grain and legumes for two centuries before anyone thought to plant vines. That came later, and it came with a famous Umbrian friend.
Backstory
Il Censo is a 65-hectare estate in Bivona, in south-central Sicily, that has belonged to Gaetano Gargano's family, through his mother's Spoto line, for over 200 years. Gaetano, a Sicilian who spent much of his working life in banking in Rome, fell in love with the wines Giampiero Bea was making in Montefalco. With Bea's guidance he set about reviving the family land as a vineyard, with his wife Nicoletta as co-proprietor.
The Region
This is interior Sicily, far from the coast, a landscape of grain fields, old olive trees and high ground. The vineyards sit high on an undulating outcropping, where altitude and diurnal swing preserve freshness in a hot climate.
Vineyards and Farming
Gaetano planted roughly nine hectares of vineyard, all to indigenous grapes: the whites Catarratto and Insolia, and the reds Perricone, Nero d'Avola and Malvasia Nera. The entire farm is managed organically, and revived century-old olive trees yield an organic extra virgin oil alongside the wine.
Winemaking
Vinification follows the low-intervention principles developed by Giampiero Bea. Only indigenous yeasts are used, with no temperature control, no fining and no filtration, an approach meant to let the high inland site speak plainly.
The Wines
The range is built entirely on native varieties: Provvido and 700 from Nero d'Avola, Njuro from Perricone, Praruar from Catarratto and Gurte from Insolia. Together they make a quietly distinctive case for inland Sicily, structured reds and textural whites rather than the sunny, fruit-forward style the island is known for.
