Italian Wine Estate Making Wines For Over 500 Years Showcases Old Vine Vertical

The baby vine had everything it needed in its peaceful, ancient sanctuary protected by surrounding mountains, the highest reaching over 8,200 feet, in an area of the Italian island of Sicily where time has stood still for over 500 years on the Feudo Montoni wine estate. This baby Nero d’Avola red grape variety, known as Calabrese in this isolated Mediterranean paradise, was created directly from its mother by an old technique called “layering,” which has taken place under the care of the same family since the late 1800s, and the layering technique probably goes back much further than that time. This means that there is a direct connection between the DNA of the baby vine and its ancestor plants, which go back centuries. When one drinks Feudo Montoni wines, he is drinking the wines written about with praise in the late 1500s. He truly gets to taste this historic grape without it being altered by purchasing vines from a nursery, as grafting vines keep the lineage of these ancient vines alive, and the extreme technique of layering keeps that lineage as pure to the source as possible.

The province where this wine estate lies is called Agrigento and it is featured with great love and devotion by the Academy Award-winning Sicilian director Giuseppe Tornatore, known best in the U.S. for his Oscar-winning film Cinema Paradiso. Although Giuseppe Tornatore was born in the more urban, energetic metropolis of Palermo in Sicily, his nostalgic feelings for the Sicily of the past brought him back time and time again to shoot his films in Agrigento as it is an untainted area that still keeps its beautiful native beauty and way of life alive.

Fabio Sireci, the multi-generational owner of the Feudo Montoni estate, is fiercely committed to “the mission” of keeping the old ways alive in his isolated paradise. He states that it is in his “blood” and his “reason for living.”

A Dying Art

Buying baby plants from the nursery is the most efficient option when a wine producer needs to plant new vines. Yet, in this isolated area within the province of Agrigento, in Sicily, the wine producer Feudo Montoni only works with “wild vines,” as they will either graft the vines or layer them. Both techniques are incredibly time-consuming and require a great deal of skill.

Most of their plants are grafted, initially planting “wild vines” from the area to establish themselves for one year in the soil and then carefully taking a piece of wood from one of their old vines, a.k.a. the mother vine, inserting it into the wild plants so it will take on the characteristics of vines that go back for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, this technique is a dying art as only a few people still use it on the island of Sicily. So, the family owner of Feudo Montoni, Fabio Sireci, said that the highly skilled grafter they use is an 80-year-old man and recently Fabio had 17 acres grafted and it took this grafter over a month to do it. Fabio says that he fears in 20 years or less, it will be impossible to find a highly skilled grafter who will not kill the mother plants in the process of grafting so he is trying to accomplish all the grafting he will need in the near future as soon as possible.

Grape vines can asexually reproduce; if a shoot from an existing 70-year-old vine is buried right next to it, the buried shoot will grow roots from the buds dormant in that shoot. Through time, that baby vine will grow and be an extension of that century-old vine. And when it comes to cutting the “cord” between the mother and baby, Fabio Sireci’s wife Melissa Muller, says that after the first few years they have to “cut the cord” from mother to baby as that is the only way that the baby vine will take off.

Of course, Fabio Sireci, the third generation of his family overseeing this ancient estate, and hopefully, one of his kids will be the fourth, cannot say what the vineyards were like over 500 years ago. Still, there is proof that there were vineyards on the estate and that they were highly regarded. Not only did a Spanish aristocratic family purchase the estate in 1469 and plant vineyards but then in 1595, one of the first treatises in Italian on the cultivation of vines was written by Andrea Bacci, who praised the growing tradition and the quality of wine made from this estate.

Close to the Heart

When Fabio’s wife, Melissa, spoke more about having to “cut the cord” from the mother vine to the baby vine, she said it was an idea close to her heart. She and her husband want their children to grow into strong, independent adults, just like the baby vine cut off from its mother. But she also hopes that, in the future, her children will appreciate that they are part of something bigger than themselves: keeping this isolated paradise from getting corrupted and tainted by the constantly changing outside world and altering trends.

Most things in life are temporary but the love of this family that has taken on the mission to protect such a precious place has been represented for over a century with these vines and, hopefully, for many centuries to come.

The Feudo Montoni has a vineyard named Vrucara, a 150-year-old, pre-phylloxera vineyard planted with the Nero d’Avola red grape using the layering technique.

2018 Feudo Montoni, Vrucara Vineyard, Nero d’Avola, Vrucara, Sicily, Italy: 100% Nero d’Avola from the Vrucara vineyard. Thrilling nose of licorice and eucalyptus with lots of vitality with concentrated, fleshy blackberry fruit and a supple texture with complex notes of tobacco leaf.

2014 Feudo Montoni, Vrucara Vineyard, Nero d’Avola, Vrucara, Sicily, Italy: 100% Nero d’Avola from the Vrucara vineyard. Multifaceted fruit with dried cherries and wild mulberries that has dried herbs and savory spices with mouthfilling fruit flavors with a bright acidity and tannins that caress the palate like ribbons of silk.

2010 Feudo Montoni, Vrucara Vineyard, Nero d’Avola, Vrucara, Sicily, Italy: 100% Nero d’Avola from the Vrucara vineyard. Impressively complex while also being still very youthful with notes of violets and crushed rose petal with juicy black cherry fruit and finely etched structure with a long expressive finish leaving wildflowers in one’s head.

Also, Feudo Montoni showcased how well their white wine, Grillo, can age, as well as their other Nero d’Avola vineyard, Lagnusa.

2022 Feudo Montoni, Grillo della Timpa Vrucara, Sicily, Italy: 100% Grillo. Enchanting nose of honeysuckle and white peach with a stunning purity enhanced by intense mineral notes.

2016 Feudo Montoni, Grillo della Timpa Vrucara, Sicily, Italy: 100% Grillo. Like liquid gold with a golden color that is followed by the most delectable notes of dried apricots and orange marmalade with hints of lilacs and zingy lemon zest on the palate with a mineral edge and long finish.

2018 Feudo Montoni, Lagnusa Vineyard, Nero d’Avola, Sicily, Italy: 100% Nero d’Avola from their Lagnusa vineyard. The Lagnusa vineyard translates into “lazy” in Sicilian because it doesn’t produce that much fruit, it is a very low-yield vineyard on the hill. Deeply concentrated, delicious wine with flavors of plum pie and blueberry tart with baking spices and plush body balanced by fresh acidity.