Wine · Mount Etna, Sicily
I Vigneri Di Salvo Foti
Etna wines farmed by hand the old way, from bush vines on the volcano.
- Founded by
- Salvo Foti
- Based in
- Mount Etna, Sicily
Their story
I Vigneri is a group of growers and vineyard workers on Mount Etna in eastern Sicily, led by winemaker Salvo Foti. Foti, an Etna native, brought the team together around 2000 to make wine with the methods his region used for centuries.
The name honors the Maestranza dei Vigneri, a winegrowers' guild founded in Catania in 1435. Today the association farms small plots across the volcano, from around 700 meters on the north side up to about 1,300 meters.
How it's made
Vines are trained as alberello, the traditional free-standing bush vine, and worked by hand or with mules. Farming is organic in practice, using only copper and sulfur, and new vines are propagated from old ones in the vineyard. Grapes are picked by hand, and some wines are fermented in open wooden vats or in palmenti, old stone presses.
Alberello is the best and oldest training method in the world.
Why we carry them
We think these are some of the most honest wines coming off Etna. Open a bottle if you want to taste volcanic soil and old-school farming.
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