Valle Dell'Acate Grillo 'Zagra' 750ml

“When we started at VinItaly, we were just 31 producers from Sicily. Now there’s a whole pavilion of us!”—Gaetana Jacono, owner of Valle dell’Acate and one of the pioneers of the New Sicily

Valle dell’Acate is found in the south east corner of Sicily, located between the Iblei mountains and the Mediterranean sea in province of Ragusa. This corner of Sicily has always been a hotbed of vinous activity, but it was in the 1800s that Gaetano Jacono founded the cellars. At that time, a great part of the wine produced in the valley was destined for export to France to help beef up wines from the Rhone valley and beyond. And since the founding of the estate, six generations of this family of vignerons have toiled in the Dirillo valley. In 2000, shortly after Gaetana Jacono got her degree in pharmacy, she abandoned her career to join the family winery with the aim of taking it to the next level. Jacono is unquestionably a force: an outspoken advocate for her native vines, in 2013 she was elected the brand ambassador for the wines of Cerasuolo di Vittoria, a role she takes very seriously. Gaetana’s success in her mission to raise the profile of the estate is a matter of fact: Valle dell’Acate is world-renowned for making high quality Sicilian wines of incredible elegance and a very special sense of place, which is no easy feat on this island. It’s telling that the estate is both one of the original pioneers of the appellation, as well as the current benchmark by which all others must be compared.

• 10–15 year old vines of Grillo grown in yellow sandy-clay soils that enhance the freshness and aromas of the wine
• Fermented for 2 weeks with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel under temperature control
• The wine is left on its fine lees for 4 months, and then put in bottle for a spring release
• The debut vintage was 2005
• Certified organic from the 2018 vintage