Italy

Vittoria

Medium

Cork

After a difficult 2022 vintage, the 20th harvest of Il Frappato from Arianna Occhipinti, 2023, is a staggeringly beautiful wine. It’s a stop-and-stare phenomenon: I sat tasting it for half an hour and between all the adjectives, what really mattered was that I was almost ready to down tools and start drinking my way through the bottle at 2pm on a Monday. Yes, there is blood orange and cranberry, bitter cherries, the smell of rose petals after rain and some elusive spice, but what is more important is that I suddenly wanted to own cases of this wine. It’s an ambassador for Sicily, as vivid, arresting and confusing as the whole ancient island, and a reminder to resist the cliches. This is vigour, not lassitude; energy, not managed decay. It’s unmissable; a wine that sparks the kind of joy wine lovers crave.

Frappato

Occhipinti, Il Frappato, Vittoria, Sicily, Italy, 2023

DEC321.southern_italy.03_occhipinti_il_frappato_vittoria_2023.jpg

After a difficult 2022 vintage, the 20th harvest of Il Frappato from Arianna Occhipinti, 2023, is a staggeringly beautiful wine.

Occhipinti, Il Frappato, Vittoria, Sicily, Italy, 2023

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