Barone di Villagrande
Sicily - Mt Etna
The Barone di Villagrande winemakers are young, fresh in spirit and energy, work together with enthusiasm, with the will to shape something new from the centuries-old roots of an estate on the slopes of Mount Etna.
They cultivate their vineyards on Mount Etna since 1727. Day by day the vines deepen their roots into the fields. With time the wines mature, and so do people on the lands. Their family has been honed by 10 generations on the Etna.
The story of the family is bonded with the Villagrande Contrada.
At the beginning of the 18th century the Bishop of Catania gave to the Nicolosi Asmundo Family the task to turn the harsh fields of Etna from an “horrific and untamed place to a delicious garden”. The Emperor Charles VI of Augsburg, King of Naples, bestowed Don Carmelo Nicolosi with the title of Baron of Villagrande.
The connection with the grapes became indissoluble, giving birth to the oldest vines cultivation story on these lands, that continues today. After generations, in 1869 Paolo Nicolosi realises the new Cellar for the winemaking and refinement, where for the first time on Etna, Red and White were made. Until then, on Etna as in the rest of Italy, only one wine was made from all the grapes together without any distinction of colour or variety. He thought differently. He wanted to make different wines aiming to valorise the single varieties and their characteristics, creating the ancestor of what today is the Etna Bianco Superiore.
In 1968 when the D.O.C. Etna was recognised, the first in Sicily, the disciplinary was written by Carlo Nicolosi Asmundo, enology and alimentary techniques professor at the University of Catania.
Barone di Villagrande wrote a fundamental page on the Etna wines history. The story is still going on. They are on the eastern slope of Etna that overlooks Taormina and the Ionian Sea at 700 metres above the sea level. BARONE VILLAGRANDE
The Barone di Villagrande winemakers are young, fresh in spirit and energy, work together with enthusiasm, with the will to shape something new from the centuries-old roots of an estate on the slopes of Mount Etna.
They cultivate their vineyards on Mount Etna since 1727. Day by day the vines deepen their roots into the fields. With time the wines mature, and so do people on the lands. Their family has been honed by 10 generations on the Etna.
The story of the family is bonded with the Villagrande Contrada.
At the beginning of the 18th century the Bishop of Catania gave to the Nicolosi Asmundo Family the task to turn the harsh fields of Etna from an “horrific and untamed place to a delicious garden”. The Emperor Charles VI of Augsburg, King of Naples, bestowed Don Carmelo Nicolosi with the title of Baron of Villagrande.
The connection with the grapes became indissoluble, giving birth to the oldest vines cultivation story on these lands, that continues today. After generations, in 1869 Paolo Nicolosi realises the new Cellar for the winemaking and refinement, where for the first time on Etna, Red and White were made. Until then, on Etna as in the rest of Italy, only one wine was made from all the grapes together without any distinction of colour or variety. He thought differently. He wanted to make different wines aiming to valorise the single varieties and their characteristics, creating the ancestor of what today is the Etna Bianco Superiore.
In 1968 when the D.O.C. Etna was recognised, the first in Sicily, the disciplinary was written by Carlo Nicolosi Asmundo, enology and alimentary techniques professor at the University of Catania.
Barone di Villagrande wrote a fundamental page on the Etna wines history. The story is still going on. They are on the eastern slope of Etna that overlooks Taormina and the Ionian Sea at 700 metres above the sea level. BARONE VILLAGRANDE