Editors notes
COS Rami Bianco is a fabulous orange wine from the very southern end of Italy. Produced so near to Africa that the flavours jump out through the architecture and the vegetation: vineyards and olive, almond, and carob groves. This beautiful climate abounds with beautiful hues of red, yellow and ochre. This land is ancient. Scratch the surface just a few centimetres and history leaps out: everything from ancient Greek coins to early Italian pottery. “Giusto Occhipinti of COS is a benchmark producer in the Vittoria appellation of Sicily, and certainly one of the most important, influential, producers in all of Sicily if not Italy as a whole. The winery was founded in 1980 by three friends, Giambattista Cilia, Giusto Occhipinti, and Cirino Strano. The initials of their last names form the winery’s name. The estate is well known for its production of Sicilian wines from Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG and for its traditional and ancient winemaking practices. Azienda Agricola COS wines are made from biodynamically grown fruit by natural winemaking techniques. The wines contain extremely low sulphites and most are fermented and aged in terracotta amphora dug into the earth. Wines not aged in amphora are aged in Slavonian oak or resin-lined concrete vats and bottled in traditional Sicilian squat bottles. The winery produces wine from the island’s only DOCG, Cerasuolo di Vittoria, made from a blend of Nero d’Avola and Frappato. It also produces varietal and blended wines from native Italian varieties including Zibibbo, Grecanico, and Inzolia and classic varieties including Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.
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Critic Scores & reviews
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Mike Bennie
95"(2018 vintage) COS is one of the great producers of Sicily, farming organically, reading from the natural wine canon and generally hitting out of the park with their wines. They have been strongly into orange wine, this being a good cuvee for showing off complexity and general easy appeal for the genre. Grecanico and insolaia are blended with just over a week of skin fermentation, done in concrete vats. Reminiscent of lemon ginger tea. Offers floral and citrusy perfume, lightly spiced too. Palate and bouquet match well. The texture is delightful, all skinsy and grippy, but curiously light too – strict is a good word, perhaps. Mouth-watering acidity plays well with the fine tannin pucker, and the wine rolls long on stone fruit and that ginger spice character. A fine wine. Unreal drinking."
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Locations
Italy
Italy has some of the oldest wine production methods in the world and almost every part of the country is planted under vine. From the Alps in the north to the very southernmost parts of Sicily where Africa is almost in sight, wine is successfully cultivated. In addition to the latitude covered, Italy's many mountains and hills provide a plethora of altitudes for grape growing in various soils and micro-climates. The extensive coastlines along the peninsula that is Italy provide maritime climates for the coastal wine-growing areas. Over 350 grape varieties are 'authorised' in Italy, though up to 550 varieties are thought to be grown.
The classification system of Italian wines has four classes, with the intention of defining a wine's origin a quality. Two of these classes are table wines, whilst DOC and DOCG fall under the EU quality wine produced in a specific region category. Vino da Tavola (VDT) means that the wine comes from Italy. Most of these wines are generally basic table wines that are consumed domestically. Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) denotes a more specific region within Italy, and the resultant will be of higher quality than simple table wines, but won't conform to the rules required for higher certification. Both Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) and Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG) are regionally more specific than IGT, and have stricter rules regarding the grape varieties grown, yields per hectare, minimum alcohol levels and so on. The major difference between DOC and DOCG is that the latter has to undergo a blind-tasting session to ensure the highest quality is achieved. Italy has 32 DOCG appelations, 311 DOC appelations and 120 IGT zones.
Key regions include Piedmont, Tuscany, Abruzzo, Veneto, Sicily and Sardinia. Common white varieties grown are Pinot Grigio, Arneis, Vermentino, Verdicchio, Fiano and Moscato. The red varieties grown the most are Sangiovese, Barbera, Dolcetto, Nebbiolo, Montepulciano, Primitivo, Nero d'Avola and Corvina.
Sicily
According to Greek legend, the god of wine Dionysus was the first to have planted a vineyard in Sicily; kick-starting the viticulture of the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It's one of the biggest wine-producing regions in Italy with Veneto and Emilio Romagna the only two Italian regions that produce more. In all, the island has an impressive 134,000 hectares under vine although this area is shrinking year by year. This region produces a wide range of wines, both table and dessert wines and the grapes most famously grown there are the Nero d’Avola and Catorrato varietals. Nerello Mascalese is used to make the Etna Rosso DOC wine from the volcanic Mt Etna and Frappato is a the main grape of the Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG.
Sicily is blessed with the most favourable climate. The summers are hot and it hardly rains, and the winters are not that cold and frost is rare. The Mediterranean climate is ideal for growing wine grapes as the coastal winds drying out grapes overnight. Because of the warm and relatively dry climate, there are less risk of rot and mildew among the grapes, so chemical sprays are rarely used. The soil of Sicily is rocky and enriched with minerals that absorb the heat during the day and release it at night, which helps the grapevines maintain an even temperature while the air around it gets cooler.
About the brand COS
Cos winery, led by Giusto Occhipinti and Titta Cilia, is active since the early 80s and now represents a benchmark in the area of Cerasuolo di Vittoria. Thanks to the love for the land, Cos winery has shown with facts, from year to year, as the wine has to be an expression of the land, vineyard and culture.
His growing interest in biodynamic and natural wine, as well as a growing interest in the vinification in amphorae, helped launch its wines locally and internationally in terms of originality and expressive power of communication, without no compromise in terms of local roots.
The vineyards are located in Fontane and Bastonaca, traditional wine lands near the village of Achates, production areas linked by fertile soils of limestone and silica, interspersed with layers of fresh clay and tuff.
All screws, placed at about 250 meters above sea level with a north-south exposure, ranging in age from ten to thirty years. Importantly, the commitment and attention that the company uses for winemaking: in fact, in the underground cellar, fermentation and vinification take place in cement tanks or in clay jars, which have been purchased in southern Spain. Details that have contributed greatly to the success of the winery, becoming a symbol of the territory of Achates.
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