Dear Friends,
Another Didacus variation revives memories and even more emotions. The Ulmo winery has always been part of our lives: its mansion and cellar, the surrounding terrain. It has become the source of so many tales, tales that may be small and insignificant for many, though important and almost legendary for us.
These stories and anecdotes have been accumulating for generations, handed down to us and recounted by those who came before us. Sometimes they are glossed over or just barely recalled, whilst other times, they are extravagantly embellished.

The upper part of the estate is filled with panoramas overlooking small vales and steep trails. As the trails take you up to 1,600 feet above sea level, they hide fragments of lively memories at every footstep.
Nature here is uncontaminated, agriculture is ancient and loved by us, and that takes care of everything.
Let me tell you about the Piano del Sommacco (Sumac Plain).
If you have sturdy legs and have just visited the Didacus Chardonnay vineyard, you ascend another 800 feet over the next mile or so. You hike past the Segreta Wood and you are on the Sumac Plain.
The Sumac Plain was already standing before the new forests of cluster pines split the property in two. The plain provides a perfect view of the estate’s old farms and fields from on high.
You can see the Ulmo mansion with Mazzallakar Saracen Fort to the North, Maroccoli terrains to the south toward the sea, and finally the Cirami district and the Risinata land to the East.
These panoramas and places bewitched us completely as kids. Small mysteries were hidden among the shadows of the many springs and their surrounding freshness. Our relatives told us so many stories of past events and episodes, stories that became tall tales and larger than life.
My brothers and I used to be sent up top, across the Segreta Wood and then climbing beyond it. This exhausting hike let us see the status of the crops and ongoing harvest from on high. At the end, there was a good harvest of fruit from the few remaining plants of the ancient Sicilian sumac bush (Rhus corairai L.).
This tree, or rather bush, used to be a source of sustenance for a Sicily which no longer exists except in the memory of a few, perhaps. A tannin of extraordinary quality for tanning hides was extracted from its leaves and branches. Then, the expert hands of homemakers extracted spices from the sumac berries that they would use to brighten vegetable soups on a winter’s eve.
There were only a few sumacs left back then, and they were said to be the remains of the powerful Emir Al-Zabut’s extensive plantation.
This legacy from wise Arabian agriculture and culture, dates back to before the turn of the first millennium when they started planting here. Family legends were filled with fantastic tales about the great expanses of woods and lucrative trade with distant lands, Levantine merchants devoted to risk and gain, and nimble sambuks continuously threatened by pirates.
Alas, all there is left of these yarns are a few remaining bushes on Sumac Plain.
In the late nineties we finished our lengthy experimentation on the vines we had planted in 1985. Another variety brought back to Sicily enthralled us: Cabernet Franc.
All those trials and one certainty: a red wine could and had to be created from Cabernet Franc grapes and the Ulmo terroir
Alessio, Francesca, Santi, and I found ourselves walking where the Sicilian sumac plants no longer existed. There was nothing left but my memories, my stories and the plateau with its 12 acres, privileged by its commanding position and so much history linked to our family.
We made a decision: where sumac once grew, we would plant the most Mediterranean of Bordeaux: Cabernet Franc.
Today more than twenty years later, the Sumac Plain is a perfect plateau, the ideal terroir we had been searching for in order to create a great red wine destined for lengthy aging, the best way possible.
Just as with the Sicilian sumac, tannins once again are at the forefront here, but some of the noblest and most velvety ones: the tannins of great red wines.
We continue to follow in the footsteps of some of the great adventures in Sicilian vine growing at the end of the 19th century. We are now drinking a Cabernet Franc that can hold its own with the so very successful Ulmo Chardonnay.
Once again, let me thank the people who have put some much of themselves in this for 20 years to allow us to achieve this result.

Diego Planeta