Roots
From the Mona Lisa to Archimedes, viticulture in Magna Grecia
Sicily always manages to bewitch the hearts of people who think they will spend only a short time here but then plant solid roots there.
This is exactly what happened to Antonio Moretti Cuseri, when in the late 1990s, during a trip to the Val di Noto, he was literally bewitched at the sight of the famous Sicilian Baroque and its warm sea waters. He fell hopelessly in love with it, so much so that he decided to start a new adventure of his own here.Noto was the third stop on our journey in dreaming of great wines. In 2000 we founded our winery in the district that, coincidentally, has always been called Feudo Maccari.
In Noto, in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, on the rocks and beaches of the southernmost strip of land, mound after mound, Antonio Moretti Cuseri managed to put together a property of about 250 hectares by acquiring them from more than fifty different landowners.
The heart of it is Maccari, where the vineyards, which face directly onto the Vendicari Nature Oasis, have already had some 30 harvests under the sun.
Sicilian wines
Here we faced the most difficult and most beautiful challenge, that of restoring an identity and a future to a great wine-growing area. The beauty of these hills that slope down to the sea and where the vineyards extend among almond groves, pushed us to carefully seek the closest possible integration with the landscape to ensure minimal impact.
Here Nero d’Avola, Grillo and Syrah grow alongside carob and olive trees, the symbolic plants of the Mediterranean environment. The great French horticulturist and our advisor Gilbert Bouvet, who has devoted a lifetime to vine cuttings and rootstocks, had no doubts because he believes there is no better area than Sicily to grow these vines here: a magical combination of volcanic soil, sunshine and constant breezes that keep the clusters healthy, never stressed by excessive heat.