Region: Sicily | Italy

Grape: Catarratto

Farming: Organic

Method: Natural 

Alc %: 12.5

How it tastes: Don't go anywhere! Nostrale wine will take you directly to the land of Sicily. Intense nose of dried herbs and baked apple. The wine is opulent with a saline and beautiful acidity on the finish.

How it’s made: The grapes are hand harvested, destemmed and pressed into stainless steel tanks where they ferment with indigenous yeasts. Aged on the lees in a tank for about 7 months. The wine is bottled unfiltered, unfined and with 20 milligrams per liter of sulfur added at bottling.

About the maker: Longarico is a project between one of our favourite winemakers, Alessandro Viola and his friend Luigi Stalteri. After graduating in oenology in 2007, Alessandro moves to Piedmont to work with Donato Lanati. Luigi runs a natural wine bar in Bologna. In 2015, they both felt the call to return to their native Sicily and start the Longarico project on the hills of Mount Alcamo. With the aim of promoting their land, they initially decided to focus on the most representative of the indigenous variety of Alcamo: Catarratto. Today they manage a few hectares of organically farmed vines located in Contrada Fastuchera on calcareous-clay soils. The very limited use of sulphites, only at bottling, the indigenous yeasts and the lack of any filtration allow for a pure expression of the varietal and the terroir, free from chemical manipulations.