Years '80. Salvatore Di Gaetano, a passionate enologist, is struck by the district of Firriato, in the extraordinary countryside of the city of Trapani, an agricultural territory deeply marked by the cultivation of vine and the culture of wine, located between the beautiful sea of Trapani's coast and the majestic fortress of the ancient city of Erice. These are the beginnings of a young entrepreneur, in love with his land and who looks at this land with new eyes, glimpsing the potential for growth and development of a wine territory of excellence such as the one of Trapani's valleys, but not yet expressed with the necessary commitment and the right productive approach.
It starts from the vineyard, from the first plants of Nero d'Avola, Catarratto and Inzolia, conducted with the scruple of a modern viticulture centered on a new concept of wine quality that has its primacy in the vineyard and in its agronomic management. In the cellar must arrive perfectly healthy grapes, organoleptically complete, harvested at the right degree of ripeness. Respecting naturalness, enhancing the oenological value, enhancing the varietal characteristics of each vine is for Firriato, since the beginning, an iron rule on which Salvatore Di Gaetano, vintage after vintage, manages to form a new model of wine business, rooted in the territory but with an eye to the most demanding and prepared markets.
The Sicily of quality wine is coming out from the shadow cone which has penalized territories and companies for too long, a new and exciting season of Italian wine is about to start and it has in Sicilian enology its driving force. Firriato winery and Di Gaetano family are, together with the great brands of the enology of the island, protagonists of this important evolution, not only under the economic aspect of production, but mainly for the enological quality of wines and the capacity of understanding the evolution of taste expressed by consumers. These are tumultuous, intense and relentless years: new wines are being produced, new wineries are acquired and techniques and technological instruments of the winery are refined. The number of recognitions, awards and, even more important, the consensus of consumers grows. We travel the world, because the world has discovered Sicily and Sicilian wines. Firriato is one of the first Sicilian wine companies that manages to interpret the best of this new dimension and international perspective, investing in this with decision and method, achieving one of the most solid distribution and commercial successes of the sector in Sicily.