Natural Wine Producers: Working With Nature
Portraits and interviews with the world's finest natural wine producers — farmers and winemakers who work in harmony with terroir, minimal intervention, and a deep respect for the land.
Eduardo Torres Acosta
A Canary Islands native turned Etna garagiste, Eduardo Torres Acosta farms tiny high-altitude parcels of old vines on Sicily's volcano and bottles them with almost nothing added.
Lamoresca
Filippo Rizzo returned to his remote patch of central Sicily in the early 2000s after running a natural-wine restaurant in Belgium, and now farms 11 hectares of organic Frappato, Nero d'Avola and Nerello Mascalese at 450 metres between Etna and Vittoria.
Elios
Two friends, Nicola and Guido, revived their families' farmland in the Alcamo hills in 2015 to make low-intervention wines from native Sicilian grapes, plus olive oil and honey.
Tanca Nica
On the volcanic island of Pantelleria, 55 miles from Tunisia, Francesco Ferreri and Nicoletta Pecorelli farm 3.5 hectares of ancient Zibibbo vines by hand, making biodynamic wines from one of the most demanding and beautiful terroirs in Italy.
Gaudioso
Siblings Antonio and Rosa Gaudioso turned their family's six-generation Sicilian farm fully biodynamic, bottling Catarratto, Syrah and Zibibbo near Partanna.
Aldo Viola
A former footballer turned natural-wine cult figure, Aldo Viola farms scattered Sicilian plots single-handed and macerates Catarratto and Grillo for months on end.
Arianna Occhipinti
Sicily's most celebrated natural winemaker, who started at 22 with one hectare and now farms 40 hectares of red sand and limestone biodynamically near Vittoria.
Vini Scirto
Former IT expert and language graduate who inherited century-old Etna vines and now make some of Sicily's most wild and unfiltered natural wines.
COS
Three friends who could not legally buy wine when they made their first vintage went on to rescue Cerasuolo di Vittoria and build one of the world's largest amphora cellars.
Etnella
A former Siemens manager walked away from corporate life to make humanistic, native-yeast wines from old vines scattered across the high contrade of Mount Etna.
Frank Cornelissen – From Belgium to Mount Etna
What would you have thought if, about 20 years ago, someone told you that, in just about a decade, a previously unknown Belgian wine broker would…
Nino Barraco
From 20 hectares of alberello-trained vines near Marsala in western Sicily, Nino Barraco produces uncertified organic wines of bracing maritime character using indigenous varieties and zero fining or filtration since his first vintage in 2004.