How Gaetana Jacono pioneered the New Sicily wine movement

Introduction

Gaetana Jacono 0:03

Wine is a culture of the people. This Frappato represents also, for me, a link between the past and the future.

Harmon Skurnik 0:15

This is Harmon Skurnik, and welcome to another edition of Skurnik Unfiltered. Today I’m sitting with Mark Fornatale, who has been the Italian portfolio director for Skurnik Wines & Spirits for many, many years. And he sat down recently with Gaetana Jacono of the fantastic estate in Sicily called Valle dell’Acate and famous for Frappato. She is quite a character.

Mark Fornatale 0:41

She is.

Harmon Skurnik 0:44

We love her.

Mark Fornatale 0:45

Really a very energetic, passionate Sicilian woman, I’d say.

Harmon Skurnik 0:50

And we love her wines. I love the Frappato. It has so much fruit, it just jumps out of the glass.

Mark Fornatale 0:55

Yeah, that’s one of those wines that really opened my eyes. I remember first tasting it probably 23 years ago, working in wine retail, and everything at that time was over-extracted, high alcohol, lots of oak, Syrah from central Sicily.

Harmon Skurnik 1:13

Everything from Sicily.

Mark Fornatale 1:14

Yes, exactly. And along comes this delicate, pretty, perfumey jumps-out-of-the-glass, geranium, spiced red wine. I mean, my head was on a swivel. Like, this is so exciting. Wow. Wine from Sicily doesn’t have to be overly extracted, high alcohol, et cetera. And this is before the arrival of Etna, really; nobody was really talking about Etna in those days. There were a few producers that were in the market, but it was not a thing. And Gaetana opened my eyes to what I like to call the New Sicily, the Sicilian wines of class and elegance that can really, really charm you.

Harmon Skurnik 1:55

Well, let’s get charmed and tune in to this episode with Gaetana and Mark. Enjoy. Cheers.

The Birth of the New Sicily

Mark Fornatale 2:04

Good morning, Gaetana. It’s such a pleasure to be with you here. My earliest memories of your wines were back when I was working for Morrell in 2001 or 2002. I tasted the Frappato, and I was absolutely blown away because at that time, in the early aughts, there was no real Etna on the market yet, except for a little bit here and there. Sicilian wine was Nero d’Avola in barrique, 15% alcohol, and, essentially, the undrinkable wine of the moment. And then here I am at this tasting, and I get a glass of red wine from you, and it’s delicate and perfumed and pretty. And I think now, as I look back on my career, that that was, for me, the birth of the new Sicily—this new identity that Sicily could be elegant and pretty and enticing and racy and interesting and more than what was going on up until that time. So, welcome to New York. Can you talk a little bit about being at the helm of Valle dell’Acate?

Gaetana Jacono 3:16

Thank you, Mark, for giving me the opportunity to speak of a long, long story about me and Frappato in the USA and in New York, especially. I have worked in my winery for more than 20 years, so I look young, but I’m not so young. I fell in love with this beautiful grape and this beautiful wine, Frappato, and of course the Cerasuolo di Vittoria, which is the only DOCG in the province of Ragusa. I fell in love with the story of my family that made wine in the province of Ragusa great because they delivered wine to France in 1870, and the wine inside the little barrels was Frappato. That is incredible because people think that the French people or other people carried it only for the color. But Frappato has a longer story. It was carried for Frappato’s characteristics: the smell, the bouquet. The long story of the travel of this grape, this wine, makes me very happy to follow the tradition, but with my vision and my open mind. I started many years ago, and I immediately understood that this wine, Frappato, that was elegant, a light red, was too early for the European market—too early for any market. And in the US, I could find the right path for this wine.

Mark Fornatale 5:00

I think it’s really interesting that the Frappato was appreciated outside of Italy. You were saying that it was shipped from Ragusa all the way up to northern Italy and also into France to be blended in with other wines in the late 1800s. And then later on, when you took the helm of your estate, you found that the birthplace of your market was the United States because American consumers are so open and curious about the wines of the world. They were more ready to taste Frappato than maybe the other Sicilians or Italians.

Gaetana Jacono 5:40

It was too early for the markets for this type of wine. And thanks to the seven soils that I have—seven different soils in my vineyards that are organic certified forever—I understood it to have great soils with a great identity for the Frappato especially, and the Nero d’Avola, but of course, only to make the blend with Frappato in the Cerasuolo di Vittoria. But I discovered that the special soils of Frappato that is black with the white stones gave me a great identity. So I needed to find the right market that could appreciate this wine. And I found the right way in 1999, here in New York. I always believe in this Frappato, and I consider myself a pioneer. I brought this Frappato to propose a new style of Sicily because the province of Ragusa and the soil that I have in Valle dell’Acate gives wine elegance but never muscle. I have this beautiful wine today that is perfect for healthy food, perfect for the style that people want to drink today—especially Frappato, but also the Cerasuolo and the Grillo ‘Zagra.’ The style is mineral, elegant, not powerful, not rich. This is a corner of Sicily, the province of Ragusa, beautiful not only for the wines but also the food.

Mark Fornatale 7:14

Also the architecture. The food, of course. The Baroque architecture is wonderful. Valle dell’Acate, the valley of the Acate River. They don’t call the Acate River the “Acate” anymore.

Gaetana Jacono 7:28

Valle dell’Acate is a romantic name that my father wanted to give to this winery because he had a great philosophy about nature, the respect of nature. The winery and the vineyards are organic, but for me and my family, to be sustainable, organic, and natural is a philosophy of our life. So, when he was thinking of a name for this winery, he thought that the best idea was to go deep into the nature of the valley of this small town called Acate. Acate is a river, a small river that’s called Achates in Greek, so today the small town is called Acate, but one time it was called Biscari. If we were in Tuscany, it’s a bad word.

Mark Fornatale 8:26

Thank goodness we’re in Sicily. Or New York.

Gaetana Jacono 8:30

So it was a name that my father chose. He didn’t want to put the Jacono family name over this Valle dell’Acate. He preferred to give a romantic sense of the area where we are and where we have been for six generations.

Mark Fornatale 8:47

You’re the pioneer of Frappato, and today we have a new wine in your classic lineup. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about it.

The DNA of Vittoria DOC

Gaetana Jacono 8:59

Yes, for more than 20 years since we met, I have only had this Frappato. One thing that I want to say that maybe many consumers don’t know is that the Frappato produced in the province of Ragusa is “Frappato DOC Vittoria.” That makes a great difference. If you open a bottle made in the area of Vittoria and you open a bottle of Frappato outside—IGT or some other things that come from Palermo—you find a great difference. The old grape Frappato that was born in the province of Ragusa in the Vittoria area makes the DNA so strong that it has a great identity. This makes a little difference that I know is difficult for consumers to understand, but it’s important to know that the Frappato Vittoria DOC from Vittoria is different from Frappato IGT made in Agrigento or Palermo.

Mark Fornatale 10:05

Because when you see DOC Vittoria, it means that those grapes that made that wine came from a delimited area of Sicily in Ragusa and make the wine more special than if the grapes came from Palermo or another part.

Gaetana Jacono 10:21

Yes. This is different. You can understand it when you taste the different wines. This is something that’s important to know. My Frappato that has been Frappato Vittoria DOC for many years is an explosion of strawberry, blackberry, and the wine is so crispy.

Mark Fornatale 10:39

It really has to be tasted to believe. I encourage everybody to have a glass of your Frappato immediately because you pour it into the glass and it literally jumps out of the glass to meet you at your nose. The pleasure of drinking it is undeniable.

Gaetana Jacono 10:53

Yes, of course. And also another thing that is important: you can serve the Frappato chilled and serve with fish, mussels, salmon, tuna.

Mark Fornatale 11:05

It’s very versatile.

Gaetana Jacono 11:07

Yes, and red wine with fish today is very modern. For this little corner of Sicily, the province of Ragusa, is something very old because it’s normal for us to drink Frappato di Vittoria with fish. I like to call this wine a small great wine because it has a characteristic. It’s beautiful on the nose, and in the taste is very floral, rose and violet flower, and there’s not too much alcohol inside the wine. For 20 years, I brought this bottle around and I was very proud to present this sense of how producing this wine in Sicily is different from other parts of Sicily. In the 2023 vintage, I thought it was the right moment to put out another expression of Frappato. I can say that this is my tribute to my great-great-grandfather who bought this property in 1870. He was a visionary, and he was so positive. And for that reason, the label that I did is a label dedicated to him and is an exact copy of another label that I have in the winery from 1906.

Mark Fornatale 12:42

This is the historical label from 1906?

Gaetana Jacono 12:46

Yes. I worked so much around the world with the Frappato, and I have known for many years that in these small vineyards, less than two hectares—organic, of course—I have the original vines that my parents planted when they bought the property. These small, small vineyards very close to the Acate River have soils of black clay, but the stones are bigger than the other Frappato vineyard. The soil has very big nutrition, more intense. I always saw that the Frappato from this small vineyard was more concentrated, with deeper color. I thought that was the right moment to present a new version of the Frappato, without losing the style of the identity of the Frappato, and with much more concentration and much more complexity on the taste with respect to the other Frappato.

Mark Fornatale 13:56

I think the Cru wine really shows what Frappato can do. The entry-level wine is absolutely pleasurable drinking, but for those who want to go a little bit deeper and have a more visceral experience with Frappato and see what Frappato can do, the Cru wine is the one.

Gaetana Jacono 14:18

This is what Frappato can give in a beautiful expression different from the entry-level Frappato. I was very proud of this wine, and of course, I’m having a lot of success. People understand and are happy to drink this type of wine. This Frappato represents, for me, a link between the past and the future. The future is represented because Frappato I consider a wine for the future, for the characteristics that we talked about before—very light and modern and fresh—and the past, because this vineyard has the old-vine Frappato, and its concentration and its complexity represents, for me, the link with the past. I think it’s a perfect combination with the future and the past.

Mark Fornatale 15:21

You mentioned that it’s a small vineyard. It’s one of the original vineyards that was bought in 1870 by your great-great-grandfather. What’s different about these two wines, technically speaking, in fermentation?

Gaetana Jacono 15:34

The first wine, the Frappato that we call entry-level, but we love so much—

Mark Fornatale 15:39

We can call it Classico. The Frappato Classico and Frappato Cru.

Gaetana Jacono 15:44

Frappato Classico is picked in the middle of September and remains in stainless steel. Of course, we need to give more time in refining the bottles with age, but I’m sorry, sometimes we haven’t because we sold out of the other Frappato. But I have seen that if you give the Frappato Classico time, Frappato is beautiful aged. Short days in maturation and stainless steel. The first difference is the Frappato ‘Contrada Vigna di Biddine Sottana.’ This is the long name, so I shorten it to Contrada. It’s in cement and not in stainless steel. And that makes the wine become more round. For me, it’s more natural.

Mark Fornatale 16:40

And it provides a little more oxygen for the wine as it develops.

Gaetana Jacono 16:40

Yes. We normally have to harvest the grapes a little bit later with respect to the other Frappato, but it’s very small, so there are not many grapes in the vineyard. The vineyard is very old, so we give it a lot of attention. The cement gives great roundness and more a natural preservative to this wine. And of course, you can see when tasting the wine, a great difference that starts from the soil and the place where the vineyard is.

Mark Fornatale 17:17

I want to thank you because you’ve brought Frappato to the US. You’re the pioneer, the ambassador of Frappato di Vittoria in the United States. And for me, you really opened my mind to the potential of Sicily. I think that is what then made things like the resurgence of Etna even possible, because there are people like Gaetana Jacono out there pushing the idea that Sicilian wine isn’t just one single identity. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for bringing more Sicily to the United States, and thank you also for giving us this beautiful window into Frappato, because now not do we only have the Frappato Classico, we also have the Frappato Contrada to keep going down the road of learning and tasting what the potential of Sicilian wines can be.

Gaetana Jacono 18:08

Thank you too, Mark, because I cannot do anything without the support of the people that work with me, you and Skurnik, of course. Nothing is possible to do alone. If you have a good thing, you need the support of other people that believe in you and believe in your wine. I was very lucky to find the people that support me and understand the wine. I have a great time in the city and especially in New York, because people are open-minded and they like to drink. So now, with this Frappato, we can start a new age to demonstrate how the expression of Frappato can be more concentrated, more complex without losing its identity, because it’s important for me and for our work. I think this is a new age for Valle dell’Acate with this wine, and wine is a culture, part of the culture of Italy, of France, of everywhere. We cannot forget this because for the next generation, maybe we can work to teach them that wine is part of their culture and they cannot forget it.

Mark Fornatale 19:29

Great. Thank you.

Gaetana Jacono 19:30

Thank you.

Skurnik Unfiltered is recorded at Skurnik Wines & Spirits headquarters in the Flatiron District of New York City, which is why you might hear some city noises as we go along, like horns honking. If you found the conversation interesting, please consider liking, subscribing, and leaving a review. You can stay up to date on our show and upcoming events by following @skurnikwines on Instagram and visiting our website at skurnik.com