Sicily
Est. 2020 
6 wines 
Tastings
Booking required
Wine area
Etna
Black volcanic terraces on Europe's highest active volcano, the home of Nerello Mascalese and Carricante.
Tenute dei Ciclopi
Tenute dei Ciclopi is a young Etna estate with a tasting room in the centre of Catania. Three friends from university days founded it in 2020 and make six Etna DOC wines with the winemaker Salvo Foti. Their old vines grow at Castiglione di Sicilia and Randazzo on the north slope, and at Milo on the east. Some are ungrafted and over a century old. The room at Via Transito 38 opens Wednesday to Sunday for booked tastings, and partner platforms sell its 90-minute tasting.
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Wines from Tenute dei Ciclopi
About Tenute dei Ciclopi
Tenute dei Ciclopi began as a friendship. Giacomo Palazzolo, Giordano Lorefice and Riccardo Messina met at university, and work later took Giordano and Riccardo to Rome. Giordano is a lawyer for a film company and lives between Rome and New York. Riccardo was born on Etna and splits his time between Catania and Rome. He heads a non-governmental organisation, associated with the United Nations, that runs learning programmes. Giacomo stayed in Sicily, where he works in training and loves to cook. Neither Riccardo nor Giordano comes from a wine family. In 2020 they founded the estate as a way back to the volcano of their childhood. They bought most of their vines from elderly growers who had worked them all their lives. Those growers are the Cyclopes of the name, alongside the one-eyed giants who, in Greek myth, forged thunderbolts for Zeus inside Etna.
The vines sit on Etna's north and east slopes, on volcanic sand between old lava flows. At Passopisciaro, in Castiglione di Sicilia, the Savoca and Campisi rows date from the 1970s. Nearby, the Vicario vineyard in Contrada Feudo di Mezzo climbs lava-stone terraces with 4,500 plants, each tied to a chestnut pole. At Randazzo, inside an old extinct crater at 943 metres, the Nucifora vineyard is one of the highest on the mountain. Its vines are over a century old and still on their own roots, because phylloxera never reached this height. The Scrivano plot nearby is 2,000 square metres of 90-year-old alberello bush vines, still hoed by hand. At Milo, on the east side, the Di Pietro vineyard sits at 860 metres in a terraced lava channel. Beside it stands a 19th-century stone pressing house that looks out to the sea off Taormina. The estate belongs to the Old Vines Conference, which brings together wineries that keep ancient vineyards alive.
Salvo Foti, whom the estate credits with refounding wine growing on Etna, makes the six wines, all Etna DOC and all from the mountain's own grapes. Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio, four parts to one, go into the Etna Rosso, the Etna Rosato and two single-vineyard reds. Contrada Feudo di Mezzo comes from the Vicario terraces and spends two years in oak. Piede Franco Quota 900 comes from the ungrafted Nucifora vines and spends two years in barriques, in about 1,200 bottles. The Etna Bianco is seven parts Carricante to three of other native white grapes, Catarratto among them. The Etna Bianco Superiore is Carricante alone, from Milo. The Etna rules reserve that label for grapes grown around that one town, and the estate counts fifteen wines on the mountain that carry it. About 650 bottles a year spend a year in large casks. Every harvest is by hand, and the reds ferment in open vats.
What sets the estate apart is where you taste. It calls itself the only Etna winery with a tasting room in the centre of Catania. The room is at Via Transito 38, a short walk from the cathedral and the fish market. It opens Wednesday to Sunday: tastings from 11 to 6 by booking, then a wine bar until one in the morning. The estate's own site sells its tasting paths, from three wines to five, each with a board of local products. The same 90-minute tasting is on Winalist, Winedering, Viator and GetYourGuide. In October 2026 the founders presented the room as the first piece of Etna Wine Hub, a project for training and innovation around Etna wine. They mean it as a door to the mountain, not a substitute for a visit to the vines.
The guides have noticed. James Suckling gave the Piede Franco 94 points and the Etna Bianco 92. Decanter gave Feudo di Mezzo 93, and the Piede Franco 2022 took the Corona of Vinibuoni d'Italia. None of the wines is sold in the UK yet. Each has its page here, and the form on it asks the estate whether it can ship.
Plate I · SICILY
Tenute dei Ciclopi on the Sicily wine atlas
Winery
Tenute dei Ciclopi
Catania · Etna
Denominations Produced
Wine areaDOC
Grapes Used
Visit & Experiences
3 bookable experiences at Tenute dei Ciclopi
3 tastings, checked by our editors. From €35.
Hosted by the estate3 available
Tasting
Etna Wine Tasting - Tenute dei Ciclopi Signature Experience
1h 30
From €35 per person
English · Italiano
Discover the charm of Catania's historic center, just a stone's throw from the Duomo, with our wine tasting. Tenute dei Ciclopi is the only Etna winery to have a tasting room in the center of Catania, a way to enjoy the same experience you would have at a winery on Mount Etna, right in the heart of Catania. Savor the authenticity of Sicilian wines while strolling through the ancient streets, letting yourself be transported by the legends of the Cyclopes and the epic journey of Ulysses along these coasts. An experience that combines flavors, history, and myth in the heart of Sicily. Let the sommelier guide you through a selection of three DOC wines from the winery: Etna Bianco, Etna Rosato, and Etna Rosso. Enjoy a platter of typical Sicilian products, including cheeses, cured meats, bread, and local extra virgin olive oil, while sipping your wines.
Tasting
Le Contrade: four Etna wines from different districts
1 h 30
€55 per person
Four Etna DOC wines from different districts of the volcano, from the east slope to the north, poured in the Catania tasting room with a board of local products. The estate's own site sells it with instant booking.
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Tasting
Le Vigne Secolari: five wines, one from century-old vines
1 h 30
€85 per person
Five Etna DOC wines, among them the Etna Rosso Piede Franco from ungrafted vines over a hundred years old that survived phylloxera, with a board of local products. About an hour and a half in the Catania tasting room, sold on the estate's own site with instant booking.
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Tours that visit Tenute dei CiclopiRun by a tour operator. The estate is one stop of several. Booking completes on the platform that runs the tour.
Catania city Center: Etna wine Tasting at Tenute dei Ciclopi
Tenute dei Ciclopi · stop 1 of 3
From €40 per person
Departs Catania
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What Tenute dei Ciclopi makes
Tenute dei Ciclopi's current bottle selection is easiest to understand through Nerello Cappuccio and Nerello Mascalese.
Key grapes
Common questions
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The tasting room is at Via Transito 38 in the centre of Catania, a few minutes on foot from the cathedral and the fish market. The winery itself is at Passopisciaro, a hamlet of Castiglione di Sicilia on Etna's north slope. Its vineyards are spread between Castiglione, Randazzo and Milo.
Plan a visit
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This form reaches the ItalianWines.co.uk team, not the winery. Tell us when you would like to come and how many you are: we contact Tenute dei Ciclopi for you and come back with availability and prices, usually within two working days.
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