Marco de Bartoli Terre Siciliane Zibibbo “Integer” IGT 2023 750ml

100% Zibibbo. From organically farmed estate vines in the contrada of Bukurram on the island of Pantelleria, about 200 km. southwest of the Sicilian mainland, closer to Tunisia. The vines are bush-trained, aged around 60 years old and grown on north-facing terraces of sandy, pebbly, poor, black volcanic soils. The selection of bunches for Integer is quite strict. It is made just like the Grillo “Integer” from De Bartoli’s Marsala estate. The bunches are manually harvested and destemmed. A small portion of the fruit is gently pressed and goes into old oak barrels for a spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts without sulfur or temperature control; maceration last around 10 days, followed by a year of aging in oak. But the bulk of the destemmed berries go into clay amphorae, where the maceration lasts for several months and the aging continues after racking off of the skins. The wood-aged and amphora-aged wines are eventually blended, bottled unfined and unfiltered and classified as IGT Terre Siciliane. There is no addition of sulfur at any point. “Integer” means “whole” and is the root word of “integrity”–the Integer bottlings are so named to represent the De Bartolis’ intention to express the fullest, most pure potential of native Sicilian white varieties vinified in the most traditional, low-tech way.