Arianna Occhipinti: Sicilian Free Spirit

There are many stars in Sicily, but few burn so brightly as the young and exceptionally talented winemaker and viticulturist Arianna Occhipinti. I first encountered her vivacious bottlings in 2017 while studying for the Master Sommelier exam; just two years later, her wines had already earned a place on the exam itself.

You won’t see her wines on many wine lists. Production is tiny and allocations are fiercely competitive, even if the wines are not extravagantly priced. Their cult status is due to the a rare line they dance: joyously drinkable yet deeply serious, refreshing yet profound. Even Stanley Tucci made a pilgrimage to visit her during the Sicily episode of Searching for Italy.

Arianna’s journey began at just 16, when she started working in the cellar of her uncle Giusto Occhipinti, co-founder of COS, the legendary estate that put Vittoria on the map. She instantly knew that growing wine was her life’s passion. She attended university to gain a technical understanding of winemaking, but when she returned she focused on was Giusti has instilled in her working at COS: organic farming, hand harvesting, native-yeast fermentations—methods far removed from Sicily’s bulk wine traditions.

As Arianna herself explains:

“Not irrigating, harvesting late, and not using fertilizers are the secret to making more elegant wines in the area. The freshness and minerality in my wines come from the subsoils. Any wine made from young vines or chemically grown vines feeding only off of the top soil will have the cooked, hot characteristics people associate with wine from warm regions.”

She began humbly, with a single hectare of abandoned vines near her family’s holiday house. By 2004, she had founded her estate, bottling her first commercial vintage in 2006. Today she farms 25 hectares of certified-organic and biodynamic vineyards, planted entirely to native Sicilian varieties: Frappato (50%), Nero d’Avola (35%), and small amounts of Albanello and Zibibbo (Muscat of Alexandria).

Her philosophy is holistic and uncompromising:

• Biodynamic farming, with cover crops like fava beans between rows

• No irrigation, despite the hot Mediterranean climate

• Massale selections for new plantings

• Gravity-flow movement of juice and wine

• No new oak, ever

Her flagship wines, the SP68 Rosso and SP68 Bianco (named for the road that runs past her estate), embody her vision: vibrant, aromatic, raised only in concrete, with no oak influence at all. The red is essentially her version of Cerasuolo di Vittoria—the traditional blend of Frappato and Nero d’Avola—though she forgoes the DOCG designation to release a fresher, more immediate wine.

Her more structured cuvées, Il Frappato (pure Frappato) and Siccagno (100% Nero d’Avola), come from older vines and are given longer aging. Yet even here, she refuses the trappings of heavy oak or extraction. Where some Sicilian producers have leaned on barrique to add “gravitas” for international markets, Arianna achieves seriousness through gentleness, terroir, and restraint.

The result? Wines that could only come from Vittoria: lithe, mineral, sun-kissed yet never heavy. They are the antithesis of what one might expect from hot-climate wines, yet they embody everything you’d actually want to drink under the Sicilian sun.

Over the past decade, Arianna has become one of the most influential voices in biodynamics and natural winemaking, though her own perspective on the term has evolved. In her words:

“I make natural wine, but this is a term I’m beginning to be less and less comfortable with, because its implications are very complicated. My main goal is to make a good wine that reflects where it comes from, and for me the only way to successfully do this is to make the wine naturally. When I first started, making natural wine was a mission, something worth fighting for. Now that I’ve grown up a little, the mission is making wine of terroir. You have to respect the vineyards, and nature in general. When I wake up in the morning, I want to feel free. Making this wine is my opportunity to feel free.”

That sense of freedom, clarity, and authenticity is what makes Arianna Occhipinti one of the defining winemakers of her generation—and one of the brightest stars in all of Sicily.

Explore her vivacious wines here.