After Alastro and Plumbago, the wild flowers which decorate the estates of Dispensa and Ulmo, it is Terebinto which gives its name to the youngest of our wines from the territory of Menfi. A single-variety Grillo, our twenty-fifth label, arrives in perfect accord with the processes of research and making the most of indigenous varieties that we have conducted for more than twenty years in the Sicilian territories – Menfi, but also Vittoria, Noto, Etna and Capo Milazzo – where we have our vineyards and our wineries.
We have carried out patient studies on Grillo, repeating the work that for years we have done on Grecanico, for Alastro; now we present our very personal interpretation of two of the most important white grape varieties of western Sicily.
In this case we have taken advantage of a representative island variety, though relatively recent; Grillo is in fact ‘the youngest of the old’ Sicilian grape varieties, fruit of a cross between white Catarratto and Zibibbo, established by Baron Antonio Mendola di Favara (1827-1908), a passionate agronomist and viticulturist, in correspondence with the greatest European scholars of the period. Grillo actually originated in 1874 when Baron Mendola wrote about it in his diary; there are no previous mentions, as we ourselves have had the means to verify among the many treatises which we preserve in the great library at Dispensa, at Menfi.
For this new label we have selected the name of a shrub with bright fronds, always linked to Sicily and the Mediterranean countryside with its many evocations. The terebinth, cousin of the pistachio, enjoys not only the privilege of being able to pollinate its female flower but also to supply a formidable rootstock, thanks to the extraordinary strength of its roots which are able to force their way through rock. Its buds, which begin to appear at the end of winter, colour Mediterranean lands for ten months of the year, and the medicinal use of its leaves and sap is common among the people who live with it.
Destined mainly for the Italian market, with Terebinto we wish to distinguish and endorse the typical characteristics of Grillo in the western area of Sicily; aromatic and intense on the nose, with notes of pink grapefruit, and then appearing complex and balanced on the palate.
