I Vigneri di Salvo Foti

Salvo Foti was born in Catania in 1962 and began his oenological career in 1981, consulting for a series of Sicilian estates as the island's modern wine revival was just beginning. In 1988 he was hired by Giuseppe Benanti to design and coordinate the Etna Project, a multi-year technical and scientific study of Mount Etna's terroir, soils, exposures, and indigenous varieties. Foti's two decades inside Benanti gave him direct involvement in the modern revival of Etna DOC, including the work that produced the Pietra Marina single-contrada Carricante that became the appellation's white-wine benchmark. By 2000 Foti was already working with a group of native Etna grape growers under the I Vigneri name as an informal association, and the consortium was formalized in 2009. The name was deliberate: it points back to the Maestranza dei Vigneri, the Catania vineyard workers' guild founded in 1435, whose hand-trained, manually worked alberello viticulture I Vigneri restores.

• Born Catania 1962; began oenological career 1981 consulting for Sicilian wineries
• Joined Benanti in 1988 to design and coordinate the Etna Project, the multi-year terroir study that shaped the modern revival of Etna DOC
• Founded the I Vigneri association of native Etna grape growers informally in 2000 and as a formal consortium in 2009
• The name evokes the Maestranza dei Vigneri, the Catania vineyard workers' guild founded in 1435

I Vigneri is structured as a producer-collective rather than a single estate. Salvo Foti runs the project with his sons Simone and Andrea, and the consortium connects native Etna grape growers who share the same training, the same hand-cultivation discipline, and the same access to the Milo palmento for vinification. The collective covers more than thirty hectares of vineyards across multiple owners, with each grower working their own land under the shared method. Foti himself is a published author and has become the principal documentarian of Etna's pre-mechanization viticulture: his books include Etna. I vini del Vulcano (Maimone Editore) and La Sicilia del Vino (Maimone Editore), both technical reference works for Sicilian indigenous varieties and viticultural practice, and La Montagna di Fuoco (Food Editore), a longer narrative on Etna as a wine landscape. Much of the modern terroir vocabulary the Etna scene uses, including its contrada-by-contrada thinking, was shaped by the Etna Project work and the Foti books that followed.

• Producer collective rather than a single estate, run by Salvo Foti with his sons Simone and Andrea
• Covers more than thirty hectares across multiple grower-owners working under shared method and a shared palmento
• Foti is a published author of three reference works on Sicilian and Etna viticulture
• His writing and the Etna Project shaped much of the modern Etna terroir vocabulary, including the contrada-by-contrada framework

The I Vigneri project is spread across three sectors of Mount Etna. On the north slope at Castiglione di Sicilia, the Vinupetra parcels sit at around 580 metres in Contrada Porcaria, on terraced lava soils planted to alberello Nerello Mascalese with smaller percentages of Nerello Cappuccio, Grenache, and Francisi. On the east slope at Milo, the only commune permitted to bottle Etna Bianco Superiore DOC, the project works Contrada Caselle at around 750 metres for the Aurora and Palmento Caselle Carricante-led whites, with Minnella as a small companion. On the northwest at Bronte, two high-altitude vineyards reach far above the classical Etna zone: Vigna Nave at 1,200 metres for the Vinujancu (Carricante, Riesling Renano, Grecanico, and Minnella) and Vigna Bosco at 1,300 metres, set inside a forest of holm oaks (Quercus ilex), for the Vinudilice rosato. Vinujancu is a 0.3-hectare parcel; Foti has said it took roughly twenty years to gather enough massale cuttings to plant the vineyard.

• North slope (Castiglione di Sicilia): Vinupetra in Contrada Porcaria at about 580 metres, alberello Nerello Mascalese with Cappuccio, Grenache, and Francisi
• East slope (Milo, the Etna Bianco Superiore commune): Aurora and Palmento Caselle from Contrada Caselle at about 750 metres, Carricante-led whites
• Northwest slope (Bronte): Vinujancu at Vigna Nave (1,200 m) and Vinudilice rosato at Vigna Bosco (1,300 m, inside a holm-oak forest)
• Vinujancu is a 0.3-hectare parcel; the massale cuttings took roughly twenty years to gather before planting

The viticultural identity of I Vigneri rests on three practices the wider industry has largely abandoned. The first is alberello, the Sicilian head-pruned bush vine that pre-dates the row-and-wire trellis. Alberello plots are individually staked, hand-tilled, and harvested by hand, and they are the historic system of choice on Etna's terraced lava soils. The same alberello tradition was UNESCO-recognized in 2014 for the island of Pantelleria. The second is the survival of pre-phylloxera ungrafted vines on certain plots, descended from cuttings of vines that survived the 19th-century epidemic on Etna's volcanic-sand soils. The third is the palmento itself: the traditional Sicilian winery, a multi-level lava-stone building where grapes are crushed at the top and the must descends through fermentation and aging vats by gravity, without pumps. The Milo cellar dates to 1840 and is one of the few palmenti still in continuous operation. Hand harvest, native-yeast fermentation without temperature control, and lunar-phase bottling complete the discipline.

• Alberello head-trained bush vines on hand-tilled terraced lava soils; the same tradition is UNESCO-recognized for Pantelleria (2014)
• Pre-phylloxera ungrafted parcels survive on certain plots from cuttings of 19th-century Etna vines
• Cellar is an 1840 lava-stone palmento in Milo, gravity-fed without pumps; one of the few palmenti still in continuous use
• Native-yeast fermentation without temperature control; bottling timed to lunar phases per Foti's biodynamic discipline

I Vigneri sits at a distinctive corner of the modern Etna scene. Frank Cornelissen built the Belgian-natural-wine pioneer narrative on the highest reaches of the north slope; Marc de Grazia at Tenuta delle Terre Nere catalogued and catalysed the contrada-by-contrada cru system; Andrea Franchetti at Passopisciaro turned the single-contrada Nerello Mascalese bottling into the appellation's defining commercial format. Foti's contribution is older and quieter: his Etna Project work at Benanti from 1988 codified the vocabulary that the rest of the contrada movement uses, and the I Vigneri collective is the institutional vehicle that has kept alberello viticulture, ungrafted vines, and palmento vinification alive on Etna while the surrounding industry mechanized. Foti is also the appellation's published reference: the three Maimone and Food Editore titles are the authoritative texts on Sicilian indigenous varieties and Etna terroir, and the I Vigneri bottlings are the most direct expression of the pre-mechanization Etna that the books describe.

• Distinct from Cornelissen's natural-wine pioneer narrative, Terre Nere's contrada cataloguing, and Passopisciaro's single-contrada movement
• Foti's Etna Project work at Benanti (1988 onward) codified the modern Etna terroir vocabulary, including the contrada-by-contrada framework
• The I Vigneri collective is the institutional vehicle for keeping alberello viticulture, ungrafted vines, and palmento vinification alive on Etna
• Foti's three reference books are the authoritative published texts on Sicilian indigenous varieties and Etna terroir