SANTA CECILIA NERO D’AVOLA, NOTO DOC

Planeta

APPELLATION

Sicilia (Noto DOC)

GRAPE VARIETIES

100% Nero d'Avola

WINEMAKERS

Patricia Toth

TECHNICAL DATA

Acidity
3.43
Alcohol
14.5%

2017

94POINTS

JamesSuckling.com

NOVEMBER 2020

2016

95POINTS

Wine Enthusiast

DECEMBER 2020

Where To Buy VIEW BRAND PORTFOLIO

BACKGROUND

Planeta’s journey began at Sambuca di Sicilia, on the estate owned by the family since the 1600s. Here, three enthusiastic young Sicilians, Alessio, Francesca and Santi Planeta, under the guidance of Diego Planeta, began their winemaking venture in the mid-1980s. Subsequent years were spent matching the extraordinarily diverse Sicilian soils with both indigenous and international varieties. Planeta today encompasses six distinct wine estates in five regions across Sicily; Ulmo at Sambuca di Sicilia, Dispensa at Menfi, Dorilli at Vittoria, Buonivini at Noto, Sciara Nuova on Etna at Castiglione di Sicilia, and the newest addition, La Baronia at Capo Milazzo. Each vineyard site is carefully cultivated with grapes that best compliment the local terroir.

TERROIR & VINTAGE NOTES

Extensive research to find the best terroir to cultivate Sicily’s most important grape variety, Nero d’Avola brought us to Noto, where the DOC Noto insists the variety originates, at the southern extremity of Sicily. Noto was the third stage of the Planeta Family’s journey in Sicily. In 1998 we founded our estate, which coincidentally has always been called ‘Buonivini’. The soft hills of Buonivini, white limestone soil with an abundance of small stones, breezes arising from the meeting of two seas, create the best conditions to make the vines grow successfully. Here Nero d’Avola and Moscato grow together with almonds, carobs and olives, symbolic plants of the Mediterranean location.
Santa Cecilia is an expression of elegance, power, balance and eminence of the unique aromas of Sicily, and today is the reference point for red wines produced from indigenous Sicilian grapes. Its name derives from that of our family: Planeta di Santa Cecilia.

WINEMAKING

The harvest took place on the 20th of September. Destalking was followed by 21 days remaining on the skins; after racking, malolactic fermentation in stainless steel tanks.

AGEING

The wine was aged in Allier oak barrels for 14 months.

TASTING NOTES

A very spicy fruity wine, brilliant and clear, perfumed with carob, bergamot and orange peel. The compact ripe fruit and balsamic notes on the palate dissolve in a sweet and vigorous manner to accompany tannins of dense texture but also open and calibrated to the structure of this wine of deep baritone tones. Traces of graphite confer elements of a high tasting lineage while cleverly elicited wild blackberry and cherry maintain the wine on a register of rigorous style and taste.
A wine which has no fear of pairing with pork marinated with chili pepper or dishes of fish with rich fibrous flesh.