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Monaci delle Terre Nere
amm@monacidelleterrenere.it

0957083638 - 331 1365016
Via Monaci, 95019, Zafferana Etnea (CT)

Monaci delle Terre Nere
amm@monacidelleterrenere.it

0957083638 - 331 1365016
Via Monaci, 95019, Zafferana Etnea (CT)

Etna Identity and Winery

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Guido Coffa, Founder

"I was born at the foot of the Etna Natural Park. My parents took me to live as a child in the countryside, in Trecastagni, because I suffered from asthma and I needed clean air.
I spent a peaceful childhood, in close contact with nature, nourishing myself with the energy of the volcano and its precious energy. Like every young person, at a certain point I wanted to leave Sicily, I remember my mother's words “Guido you are a man of good taste, Sicily will hit you one day and when this happens you will fall madly in love with it."

CATARRATTO DOC

And for years I have been around, first in Italy to study between Turin and Milan and then around the world working, especially in the States, training as a company manager. The dream of Monaci delle Terre Nere was born almost by chance or, perhaps, by destiny.
After years of travel, experience and personal growth as well as work, my mother's words always resounded in my mind, so, before returning to the States at the end of the summer of 2007, I started looking for a place that in which to be able to create my home. On a beautiful day in November, I remember it as if it were yesterday: during the first day of research, I came across a piece of land with a ruin. It was love at first sight. It remained in my head, I did nothing but think about it and in the end, as thought creates, I bought the villa that is now Monaci delle Terre Nere.
It was as if my mother had guided me to this place. I bought it, I upset my plans and moved there immediately, I laboriously working to free its beauty from the brambles that covered it, improvising myself as a digger, a farmer and I took courses to become an oil and wine sommelier.

How many things have I learned and what an effort! Then one day a friend told me about the possibility of European funding and I tried the first call for an agritourism, I got it: We opened the hotel at the “Garibaldi style” with six rooms.
I have never defined myself as the owner of the estate, if anything, his Keeper: it was the place that chose me, I just dusted off its hidden beauty.

I have always loved wine! I believe it is one of the noblest human arts. When I was a teenager, my friends always teased me because I came to parties with two bottles of local wine, but then they would take turns asking me to taste. I remember my first experiments in the garage at home, I still have a few bottles, which I tasted again after many years, amazed by its strong character and its maturity. Monaci gave me the opportunity to realize my dream and finally become a wine producer, a wine in which I also put my face, since it bears my name!

Ours are territory’ wines

Company identity

Today Monaci delle Terre Nere has grown and is now a Relais & Chateaux residence, and a farm of 25 hectars where we produce wine, oil, fruit and vegetables. We also have a chicken coop and everything happens according to the philosophy of organic and Slow Food.

The origins of our estate are ancient and tell of a particular story. All over the world there are terraces in the presence of hills or mountains. This is because different populations in different historical periods have arrived at the same solution. It is what historians call adaptive convergence.

The dry-stone walls are built in perfect harmony with the environment and the technique exemplifies a harmonious relationship between man and nature. They are systems that make hilly or mountainous areas cultivable, which otherwise would be unusable. They serve to reduce soil erosion due to heavy rains and landslides, but also to facilitate work for farmers. They play a vital role in preventing floods, fighting land erosion and desertification, improving biodiversity and creating the best climatic conditions for agriculture. With the terracing we therefore try to make flat lands with a strong slope, forming several steps delimited by dry stone walls.

Over the centuries, the Art of dry-stone walls in Sicily has characterized entire landscapes, infusing them with a peculiar identity.

Sicily boasts the largest number of terraced hectares in Italy, plus 63 thousand. Among the areas of Sicily most covered by terraces there is Etna. Along its slopes you can see vineyards, olive groves and orchards built on terraces that are hundreds of years old, which have given rise to an ancient and deep-rooted winemaking tradition.

Even our vineyards have been handed down to us like this.

The story goes that the Archbishop of Catania, who had made his residence Pisano, donated the land to be cultivated to the monks and the Monks themselves, in particular those of the Order of the barefoot Augustinians of Valverde who, from the 17th century, they began to take care of the land of Pisano. They shaped the steep hills through the terraces that have survived to the present day. Over the years, we have worked them and continue to use them for our production of ancient species of fruit trees, vineyards, olive trees, spices also thanks to an incredible biodiversity transmitted over the centuries to us. We must say thanks to the monks and nobles of those times if we can still enjoy these crops today.

Our Winery today

I have always thought that to make great wines you need great grapes and therefore the work we do in the vineyard is careful and respectful of Nature: we produce organically, certified by Agricert, we use only sulfur and very little green copper if necessary, only from native vines, the Etna Doc, a Grenace and a wine from pre-phylloxera vines, relics of Etna. Recently I also enjoy making small personal productions of natural wine for my partner Federica.

In Italy we have two large areas naturally suited to the production of wine: Piedmont and Etna. This territory has yet to grow, but it has been fantastic to witness the change of Etna over the last ten years. We have had some important pioneers.

When the parenthesis of phylloxera was closed, viticulture on Etna lost its centrality: the production costs were high because it is mountain viticulture, the yields per hectare and those of vinification were very low. Inexorably the vineyards were abandoned and this continued until the end of the 1980s, when Italy began to produce quality wines more widely. The Benanti family was the first to believe in production on Etna and then Marco De Grazia and later many decided to invest here, reviving the viticulture of the volcano.

"There are also old vineyards, centenary plants ungrafted, real monuments of Italian viticulture. In the area you can still see and admire works of millenary engineering with perfect dry-stone walls and water channeling systems." (Sandro Petrini)

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