Il Censo is a project started by Gaetano Gargano and his wife, Nicoletta, in close cooperation with Giampiero Bea. Gaetano, a Sicilian by birth, has spent much of his adult life in banking while living in Rome. He became and still is a client of the Bea family and, impressed by the work the Beas have done in Umbria, he decided to rejuvenate the old family property in the hamlet of Bivona in southwest central Sicily close by the village of Palazzo Adriano (where the film “Cinema Paradiso” was made). With the counsel of Giampiero Bea, the Gargano family has replanted hillside vineyards to two local grape varieties: Cataratto (white) and Perricone (black), also known in local dialect as “njuro cani” (black dog). The vineyard is managed organically, comprised of 5 hectares at 700 meters altitude. As is usual with a Giampiero Bea design, the label of each wine provides much detail. For the first releases, the Njuro (the red wine) fermented spontaneously on the native yeasts for 16 days without temperature control. Likewise the Praruar (“golden” in Greek and Albanian) spent its first 16 days spontaneously fermenting on the natural yeasts and in contact with the skins.
For more information, please visit Rosenthal Wine Merchant
