Est. 2005 
3 wines 
Tastings
Tours
Accommodation
Booking required 
Wine area
Etna
Black volcanic terraces on Europe's highest active volcano, the home of Nerello Mascalese and Carricante.
Al-Cantàra
Al-Cantàra is a wine estate on the north slope of Mount Etna, just outside Randazzo in eastern Sicily. Its 20 hectares, about 28 football pitches, mix old vines with hazelnut and olive groves. Every bottle carries a poem by a Sicilian writer, with a label painted by a Sicilian artist.
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Sicily
- Est. 2005
- 3 wines
- Tastings
- Tours
- Accommodation
- Booking required
About Al-Cantàra
Pucci Giuffrida was an accountant in Catania before he was a wine producer. In 2005 he bought a farm outside Randazzo and gave it a second job: putting Sicilian poetry on wine labels. The estate takes its name from the Alcantara, the river that runs below Etna's north side; the word is Arabic for bridge. The land itself told an older story. After phylloxera struck in the early 1900s, much of Etna's farmland changed crops. On this estate only a fifth of the land was still in vine; the rest had gone to hazelnuts and olives.
The old Nerello Mascalese vines were kept and retrained. Two thousand of them still grow on their own roots, never grafted onto American rootstock. A small patch of Grecanico stays in production too, the white grape old Etna families once used in their house blends. Alongside them grow Carricante, Nerello Cappuccio, and plantings of Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon.
The poems are the signature. Each wine takes its name from Sicilian verse, by writers such as Luigi Pirandello, Giovanni Verga and Nino Martoglio. Each label is painted by a Sicilian artist. An 1850 farmhouse on the estate holds the Little Museum: about 400 labels, bottles and sculptures by some 300 artists, including Oliviero Toscani and Ferdinando Scianna. Stone pyramids stand on the estate land, which the family links to religious symbols thousands of years old.
The farming is by hand. Green manure crops feed the soil instead of chemical fertiliser. Picking runs in several passes, led by experienced women who take only the bunches that are ready. In the cellar, winemaker Salvo Rizzuto, trained in Bordeaux and the Langhe, keeps oxygen off the juice. The wines age in French oak and Etna chestnut barrels, often ones used several times before, so the wood stays in the background. The whites carry about half the added sulphites that organic rules allow. The estate also runs two projects with the University of Catania's agriculture faculty. Ponds of plants clean the winery's waste water, and a recovery programme is saving Etna's nearly extinct old grape varieties. Solar panels power part of the work.
The wines have been noticed. At Vinitaly 2023, Italy's biggest wine fair, Al-Cantàra was named winery of the year, the Gran Vinitaly award, on the strength of its 5StarWines judging scores. The range runs from Etna DOC red, white and rosé to Terre Siciliane IGT bottlings, a classic-method sparkling, and a passito red, Lu Disìu, for after dinner. Visits are by arrangement, and annual art events open the estate to guests.
Plate I · SICILY
Al-Cantàra on the Sicily wine atlas
Winery
Al-Cantàra
Randazzo, CT · Etna
Denominations Produced
Grapes Used
Visiting Al-Cantàra
Editorially verified by ItalianWines.co.uk.
Tastings
Not offered
Tours
Not offered
Accommodation
Not available
Booking
Required
Bookable online
Not confirmed
Experiences at Al-Cantàra
Nothing here can be booked online yet. The experiences below are documented by our editors. The estate's contact details are in Practical info.
Hosted by the estate
Estate visit and the Little Museum
Visits are by arrangement through the estate's phone, email or contact form. The Little Museum, in an 1850 farmhouse, shows around 400 artworks tied to the wines, and the estate holds art events during the year.
Estate visit and the Little Museum
Visits are by arrangement through the estate's phone, email or contact form. The Little Museum, in an 1850 farmhouse, shows around 400 artworks tied to the wines, and the estate holds art events during the year.
Plan your visit
What Al-Cantàra makes
Al-Cantàra's current bottle selection is led by Etna DOC. The clearest grape signal comes from Nerello Mascalese.
Common questions
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Al-Cantàra is on the north slope of Mount Etna, just outside Randazzo in the province of Catania, in eastern Sicily. The address is S.P. 89, Contrada Feudo Sant'Anastasia, Randazzo.
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