Planeta cautiously optimistic about DOC

Francesca Planeta, sales and marketing manager for one of Sicily’s largest family-owned wine producers, Planeta, has welcomed the amended DOC regulations for the island, despite some reservations that they have not gone far enough.

As of this week, the Comitato Nazionale Vini has approved the term DOC Sicilia, an identity previously reserved only for IGT wines. This lower tier will now be referred to as IGT Terre Siciliane. Sicily currently has 22 DOC regions and one DOCG, Cerasuolo di Vittoria.

The proposals were put forward by Assovini, a group that includes many of Sicily’s major producers. Its current president is Diego Planeta, father of Francesca, giving the family both a keen interest and important influence in the result.

However, despite her belief that improving awareness of the region’s DOCs “will help to give Sicily an identity”, Francesca Planeta expressed disappointment that the amendment stopped short of preventing wines labelled DOC Sicilia from being bottled outside Sicily. Nevertheless, she conceded that in comparison with the former IGT Sicilia, “the DOC Sicilia will be much more strict; the wines have to be from Sicilian grapes and made in Sicily.”

In particular, she hoped that the ruling would benefit the island’s bulk producers seeking to win contracts with big monopolies. “Before it always went to the north, who were benefiting from Sicilian wine.”

Given that DOC Sicilia still permits the region’s wines, even at this quality level, to be bottled elsewhere, it seems unlikely that the watered down amendment will succeed in redressing this competitive imbalance with the industrial power houses of the country’s north.

The original proposals are also understood to have included maximum permitted restrictions, although this objective also appears to have been sidelined in the final document.

On an individual level, Planeta has been working hard to build a reputation for individual DOCs within Sicily. Francesca Planeta remarked: “We’re working to get Sicily in 10 years time to the level of Piemonte or Toscana, to have people ask for Nero d’Avola from Noto or Menfi and no longer talking just about Sicily.”

2008 saw the region surrounding Noto awarded DOC status, which Francesca Planeta attributed largely to the efforts by her father to win greater recognition for this area. In particular she highlighted Noto as a particularly promising site place to grow Sicily’s red flagship Nero d’Avola, describing the area as “the Montalcino of Sicily”.

“It’s the native place for Nero d’Avola and gets the best expression,” she maintained, adding: “In other places Nero d’Avola can be richer and overpowering, but Noto gives a lovely acidity and it expresses itself in a really stylish way compared to other parts of Sicily.”

In addition to Nero d’Avola, Francesca Planeta picked out the white Carricante and red Nerello Mascalese varieties grown on the volcanic soils of Mount Etna as strong candidates for boosting Sicily’s reputation at higher quality levels.

Francesca Planeta is now convinced that these native varieties have an important role to play in Sicily’s future. “When I came to the UK in ’96 it was very difficult to sell Nero d’Avola and Grecanico, but Merlot and Chardonnay were much easier,” she recalled. “It was hard for me to understand, but my father understood things would move in a different way.”

Planeta continues to work with international interlopers including Chardonnay, Viognier, Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon, as well as Italian immigrants such as the Campanian variety Fiano. Indeed, Francesca Planeta observed: “We’ve had good success with international varieties, they have a real Sicilian style to them.”

Despite this success, the family has carried out extensive research into Sicily’s indigenous varieties. In 2006 Planeta set up a winery on Mount Etna working with Carricante and Nerello Mascalese, in addition to its work with Nero d’Avola in Noto and a new project in Capo di Milazzo to revive ancient Sicilian varieties.

Indeed, Francesca Planeta asserted: “Now that we have discovered so much in Sicily we need never import anything from other regions again.”