#IHaveAWineDream
I have a dream.
A perfect agricultural estate.
We are moving forward. The road ahead is, as always and fortunately, a long one. This allows us to continue to think about what is best for us. And for those who will come after us.
Today we are a professional and experienced squad.
Our patrimony, our bond to our work come from six generations of agricultural entrepreneurship in a world, the world of wine, which has undergone a radical transformation, a true revolution. Had we started from scratch, we would have had some immediate advantages, but we would have lost a true treasure of knowledge, of accumulated experience.
We are now composing a complex puzzle. I can say that many pieces of the puzzle have been put together, but other new ones are still on the table and they are all a challenge.
A true test.
The point of departure for rethinking a contemporary wine estate was the soil.
It was the soil which gave us the “7 soils for 7 wines” project, fruit of 50 years of experimentation on the ground, first empirical, then analytical, which showed us the right places, those which gave character to the vines, giving the wine a unique expressivity, that which brings out all of its individuality and personality.
Since I have been involved with the estate (20 years), we have grown from 30,000 to 400,000 bottles.
Results like this cannot be achieved on one’s own.
I have two families in support, mine and the Ferreri, Both driven by the desire to improve, to constantly innovate.
In this period we restructured and renovated the historic estate buildings, the equally historic cement fermenting tanks and the pantry, the places which recount their own history, as do the old tools and implements, all captured in the fascinating images of photographer Giò Martorana.
It is not a museum but a space which we live in on certain occasions, I am risking nothing when I define it a space of awareness.
From here we face onto the former pantry where we organize meetings and encounters, the presentation of our wines when the outside world comes to find us at our home.
Then, in the year 2006, we constructed the new barrel cellar.
It rises next to the large building which recounts, forcefully, the idea of wine which was current in the 1970’s.
But the challenges continues, new and different from those of the past.
Today we face the responsibility of a better future, a sustainable one. The key word is: innovation.
A firm cannot go forward without innovation, sustainable innovation.
In Sicily we have the advantage of favorable climatic conditions for organic cultivation.
My personal philosophy, which I apply to Valle dell’Acate as well, is “big things grow from little things”.
With a strong sense of responsibility for the heritage we will leave to future generations.
Gaetana Jacono